Just want to switch off for a few days: Pant after LSG’s campaign ended in IPL 2025

Ending a lengthy lean patch, Rishabh Pant returned to form with a blistering century, albeit in a losing cause, after his team, Lucknow Super Giants (LSG), bowed out of IPL 2025 with a six-wicket loss to Royal Challengers Bengaluru (RCB) in their final league match in Lucknow on Tuesday.

As the focus shifts to the crucial five-Test series against England starting June 20, Pant, who was recently named the vice-captain of the Test team that’s undergoing a significant transition phase after the recent retirements of three stalwarts — Rohit Sharma, Virat Kohli and Ravichandran Ashwin, will now form a part of the leadership group along with skipper Shubman Gill.

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After completing his IPL duties on Tuesday, the wicketkeeper-batter said that he will switch off for a few days before starting preparations for the gruelling Test series, which marks the start of the new World Test Championship (WTC) cycle.

“Just want to switch off for a few days, not think about cricket, and then the England series is coming up and just preparing for that in a good frame of mind,” he said on Tuesday.

Analysing the topsy-turvy season for the Lucknow franchise, Pant conceded that with the kind of inconsistent cricket his team played, the results were unlikely to be any better for his side.

“Eventually, you’ve got to play 40 overs of good cricket. Twenty overs will definitely not save you in a T20 game, and that’s been our story. There were a lot of injury concerns before the tournament, that’s something that hurt us going through the season,” Pant admitted at the post-match presentation following the loss against RCB.

Counting on the positives from the 18th season of the IPL, Pant said, “The way our batting unit has come up, there have been some special bowling performances also. Digvesh Rathi is one of them. Avesh bowled some crucial overs. We’ve been getting chances, but we weren’t able to maintain it for a longer period of time.”

Despite failing to score with the bat for most part of the season, Pant’s leadership qualities were hailed by the franchise’s mentor and former India speedster Zaheer Khan, who also added that a host of injuries in his team’s pace department hurt the plans of the side, for which despite a few experiments, they couldn’t find a settled attack.

“When you start off the IPL season, obviously your first goal is to think of the playoffs, how you are going to get there, what kind of plans you are going to have,” Zaheer said. “We obviously made the conscious effort of not paying much attention to the challenges which we are facing in the beginning of the season, which is losing a few of our main bowlers to injuries, and still going to find a way of putting up games of cricket together and finding ways of winning the match. That is something that was the process that everyone was aligned to.”

“Looking at that, we have had a decent season from that point of view, but yes, we fell short. Putting the game together was a challenge, which was evident right throughout the season. Those are the learnings that we have from the season.

Pant, who ended the campaign on a strong note by belting a 61-ball unbeaten 118, earned praises from Zaheer for his leadership. “He (Pant) has been good as a leader, that is something which was a bright positive for us throughout the season. The form with the bat definitely was something that was a learning experience for him as well, to have this kind of a season. But the ability, calibre is something which no one has any doubt about. That is the way we are looking at it, so we are happy that he finished on a very strong note. That is the calibre which he has, that is the impact he can have on the game.”