When Rishabh Pant became the most expensive player in IPL history at ₹27 crore, the move felt bigger than a signing. Lucknow Super Giants were not just buying a wicketkeeper-batter. They were investing in a franchise identity.
Pant was supposed to become the face of a new era- aggressive, fearless and marketable. He was handed the captaincy almost immediately, expected to lead both with the bat and tactically from the middle.
Two seasons later, Lucknow are staring at the wreckage of that plan.
Their campaign officially collapsed after a heavy home defeat to Punjab Kings confirmed a last-place finish in IPL 2026. Since Pant took over, LSG have managed only 10 wins in 28 matches. After the game, Director of Cricket Tom Moody sounded like someone preparing the ground for major change.
The comments that changed the conversation
Moody stopped short of directly blaming Pant for the season. But his words carried the tone of a franchise reassessing its entire structure.
“From a captaincy point of view, you know, he’s found it challenging, obviously, and the results reflect that, and you do have to wonder whether that is a pressure that is reflected with his performance with the bat. I know that this season has been a difficult season for us, but we will reflect on it, we’ll take time, we’ll reflect on it. We’ll consider all things,” Moody said at the press conference.”
His observation matters because Pant’s value has never been built around caution or management. His greatest strength has always been chaos, the ability to alter games in 20 balls, intimidate bowlers and drag teams out of impossible positions. At LSG, that version of Pant has appeared only in flashes.
The numbers behind the decline
The contrast between peak Pant and current Pant is becoming difficult to ignore.
At his best for Delhi Capitals, Pant looked like one of T20 cricket’s most destructive left-handers. In 2018 alone, he scored 684 runs at a strike rate above 170, playing innings that permanently changed how Indian cricket viewed attacking wicketkeeper-batters. Since moving to Lucknow, the returns have felt strangely restrained.
Across two seasons with LSG, Pant has scored 581 runs combined while striking at 135.74, respectable numbers in isolation, but perhaps nowhere near the level expected from a ₹27 crore player around whom an entire franchise has been constructed.
The captaincy record looks worse. Ten wins. Eighteen defeats. A win percentage under 36. For a team built around a marquee superstar, those numbers inevitably invite uncomfortable conversations.
Why LSG may remove him as captain
The strongest argument for removing Pant as captain is not punishment. It is preservation.
Over the last two years, Pant has often looked like a player carrying multiple crises at once — stabilising collapses, managing fragile middle orders and making tactical calls while trying to rediscover his own batting rhythm.
The result has been a version of Pant that feels more careful than instinctive.
LSG’s management now appears to be asking whether the franchise’s biggest investment is being diminished by the weight attached to him.
There is also the wider India context.
Pant recently lost India’s Test vice-captaincy to KL Rahul and has already fallen out of the ODI setup. In modern cricket, franchise leadership and national reputation increasingly overlap. Another disappointing IPL season as captain only intensifies scrutiny around his overall direction as a player.
Removing the captaincy could therefore become less of a demotion and more of an attempt to reset his cricket entirely.
The bigger issue inside LSG
Pant’s struggles are also tied to a larger structural problem within the franchise.
Throughout the season, LSG’s middle order looked unstable and reactive. Their batting rarely developed a consistent identity. At different points, Moody himself publicly questioned the side’s execution and decision-making.
That matters because captains in the IPL are not simply tacticians anymore. They are expected to act as on-field project managers in a tournament that moves at exhausting speed. The pressure becomes even heavier when the captain is also the team’s biggest star and most expensive player.
By appointing a separate captain, LSG may believe they can free Pant to focus entirely on batting and wicketkeeping, the two things that made him invaluable in the first place.
What happens now?
In all likelihood, Pant is not leaving Lucknow anytime soon. The financial investment is simply too large and his ceiling remains too high for the franchise to walk away from. But leadership changes in the IPL often arrive quietly before they become official.
And after Tom Moody’s unusually direct post-match comments, it increasingly feels like LSG have already begun preparing for life after Captain Pant. The ₹27 crore gamble may not be over yet. But the captaincy chapter suddenly looks far closer to its end than its beginning.