Former Indian Test opener Sadagopan Ramesh reckons Rishabh Pant prioritised money over happiness in his move to Lucknow Super Giants. Pant for roped in for a whopping amount of INR 27 crore in IPL 2025 mega auction, making him the most expensive player in IPL history.
But the wicket-keeper bat could not deliver while leading in two seasons. After LSG finished IPL 2026 as the wooden-spooners, Pant resigned from his captaincy position.
Pant scored 312 runs in 14 matches of IPL 2026 at an average of 28.36 and a strike rate of 138.05, whereas he could only manage 269 runs in 13 matches of IPL 2025.
Meanwhile, Rishabh Pant played nine seasons with Delhi Capitals from 2016 to 2024, making 111 appearances – the most by any player for DC. He also captained the side in 43 matches from 2021 to 2024.
Pant has moved to the Delhi Capitals for INR 15 crore, whereas Kuldeep will receive INR 13.5 crore with the Lucknow Super Giants after the trade deal.
Ramesh said on his YouTube Channel, “DC never wanted to let go of Pant and never released him even in 2024. They were ready to negotiate with him and urged him not to leave. But Pant was adamant on entering the auction to go for a higher price despite DC offering him 20 to 25 crores. So he prioritised money but did not get the happiness he wanted with LSG. Otherwise he would not have left LSG for DC.”
“DC went till 21 crores for Pant in the 2024 auction. Yet they’ve got him again now for 15 crores. So it’s turned out to be a clever move from DC. Pant also reached a situation where he desperately wanted to return to DC. When the price is high, the pressure to perform becomes exponentially higher and that leads to drop in performance. That’s the lesson to be learnt from the Rishabh Pant situation.”
The former flamboyant batter added that LSG will benefit more from the trade as Kuldeep Yadav will be more effective than Pant.
“LSG is at the advantageous situation with this trade. Kuldeep has the potential to bowl 336 deliveries in a season so his chances of taking 20 wickets in a season is extremely high. Barring one bad season this year, Kuldeep generally takes close to 15 wickets every season. For Rishabh Pant to match that, he has to score 450 to 500 runs. LSG is at a definite advantage because Kuldeep’s chances of picking up 15 to 20 wickets is much higher than Pant scoring 450+ runs,” said Ramesh (via the aforementioned source).
Kuldeep scalped only 10 wickets in 12 matches in IPL 2026 and conceded his runs at a high economy rate of 10.30.
