“He prioritised money but did not get the happiness”

Former Team India opener Sadagoppan Ramesh believes Rishabh Pant made the mistake of prioritizing money over happiness by leaving the Delhi Capitals (DC) for Lucknow Super Giants (LSG). After being with DC in the first nine years of his IPL career, the 28-year-old forced his way to the auction two years back.

Pant went for a massive ₹27 crores, the highest-ever price for a player, with LSG acquiring his services. However, the gloveman struggled in his two seasons as captain and performer with the franchise, scoring under 320 runs in both seasons. His side also missed the playoffs in both seasons.

As a result, LSG executed a blockbuster trade with DC recently, with Pant returning to DC for a much lower price of ₹15 crores and Kuldeep Yadav moving to LSG.

Talking about the trade on his YouTube channel, Ramesh said:

“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.”

He continued:

“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.”

Apart from playing all nine seasons with DC before his move to LSG, Pant also captained the side from 2021 to 2024, except for 2023, when he was out with injury.

“LSG is at a definite advantage” – S Ramesh on the winner of the Pant-Kuldeep trade

Sadagoppan Ramesh believes LSG won the trade with DC in the Kuldeep Yadav-Rishabh Pant swap ahead of the IPL 2027 auction. The former opener called Kuldeep a 15-wicket bank every season, while questioning whether Pant can achieve a similar metric with 450-500 runs.

“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 endured a rare poor season this year, picking up only 10 wickets in 12 outings. However, the left-arm spinner had picked up an impressive 62 wickets in his previous four seasons with DC.