Rishabh Pant will be eager to justify the hefty price tag as Lucknow Super Giants look to open their campaign at home on a positive note when they take on an in-form Punjab Kings at the Ekana Stadium in Lucknow on Tuesday.
Pant, who was bought for a whopping Rs 27 crore at the mega auction last year, hasn’t had the best of starts to the season, with scores of 0 and 15 in the first two matches.
However, he can take pride as a leader after his side managed to bounce back with a morale-boosting five-wicket win against Sunriser Hyderabad after suffering a heart-breaking one-wicket loss to Delhi Capitals in the opener.
Despite Pant’s dismal outings as a batter, the rest of the LSG unit had a fruitful outing against SRH with Nicholas Pooran (70 off 23) and Mitchell Marsh (52 off 31) acing the chase after Shardul Thakur’s (4/34) twin strikes in the third over halted the marauding SRH batting unit.
For the first time, Pant will face his former Delhi Capitals coach Ricky Ponting, who has joined Punjab Kings this season. It will also be a clash between the most expensive and second-most expensive players in IPL history, with Shreyas Iyer leading Punjab Kings.
Iyer, who was ropped in for Rs 26.75 crore, however, had a fabulous start in the new franchise, as he led from the front with a match-winning 97 not out off 42 deliveries against Gujarat Titans. The IPL-winning captain is relishing playing at number 3 and will look to continue in the same vein.
Besides Iyer, all eyes will be on Shashank Singh, who reminded fans of his last season’s blitzkrieg and Priyansh Arya respinded to the faith shown by the team management by slamming a 23-ball 47 for a memorable IPL debut.
Their batting efforts were complemented by India quick Arshdeep Singh and a disciplined bowling at the death by medium pacer Vijaykumar Vyshak, who was brought in as an impact sub.
The pitch is expected to assist the slower bowlers but having said that, the wicket produced varied results during the IPL last season and in the four WPL played last month.
If the pitch continues to behave as expected, the spin batteries of either side will look to take full advantage of the conditions. Both sides boast of a decent spin department with leg-spinners Ravi Bishnoi and Digvesh Rathi expected to lead the home side’s attack while India leggie Yuzvendra Chahal will be the leader of the spin attack for Punjab with Glenn Maxwell also expected to roll his arm over.
Against Shardul Thakur, who has already proved his worth after being brought in as a last minute inclusion, the Punjab top order will have to take extra caution.
Squads:
Punjab Kings: Shreyas Iyer (c), Priyansh Arya, Pyla Avinash, Harnoor Singh, Josh Inglis, Prabhsimran Singh, Vishnu Vinod, Nehal Wadhera, Azmatullah Omarzai, Aaron Hardie, Marco Jansen, Glenn Maxwell, Musheer Khan, Shashank Singh, Marcus Stoinis, Suryansh Shedge, Arshdeep Singh, Xavier Bartlett, Yuzvendra Chahal, Praveen Dubey, Lockie Ferguson, Harpreet Brar, Kuldeep Sen, Vijaykumar Vyshak, Yash Thakur.
Lucknow Super Giants: Rishabh Pant (c&wk), David Miller, Aiden Markram, Aryan Juyal, Himmat Singh, Matthew Breetzke, Nicholas Pooran (wk), Mitchell Marsh, Abdul Samad, Shahbaz Ahmed, Yuvraj Chaudhary, Rajvardhan Hangargekar, Arshin Kulkarni, Ayush Badoni, Avesh Khan, Akash Deep, M Siddharth, Digvesh Singh, Akash Singh, Shamar Joseph, Prince Yadav, Mayank Yadav, Mohsin Khan, Shardul Thakur, Ravi Bishnoi.