Rishabh Pant remains one of the biggest IPL question marks. While he has had a couple of terrific seasons with Delhi, he also has had a handful of ones where he has looked well short of the talent he has at his disposal.
Following a mega-money move in the IPL 2025 auction, Pant was named captain for Lucknow Super Giants, but had an extremely disappointing campaign as he only managed to score 269 runs, while looking completely off-colour.
Heading into the 2026 season, there are changes that Pant might be looking to make in order to find his white-ball form again. Already having spent time workshopping with Yuvraj Singh, Ravichandran Ashwin has recommended a change that could shake things up massively in the LSG dressing room.
Speaking on his YouTube channel to preview LSG, Ashwin said about Pant: “Rishabh Pant has been practising with Yuvraj Singh, and after that, if he does well, Yuvraj could be the Midas touch Rishabh Pant needs. But if Pant needs to be used well, perform well, then Rishabh Pant should be opening the batting or batting at number three. Shouldn’t bat below that.”
Pant could be LSG’s best batter: Ashwin
In 2025, Pant opened the batting late in LSG’s season and produced his best performance with an innings of 118* against RCB. Given it was a performance that seemed to spark him into life, Ashwin believed more of the same would be needed for him.
“Rishabh’s ideal number has to be opening the batting in my view, because if the captain is firing, that team looks very, very different. And Pant inside the powerplay will have lesser problems to start out,” he explained. Although seen as a ferocious hitter of spin, Pant did struggle to generate boundaries against spinners in 2025, often holing out with mishits.
The question LSG will need to answer is what the batting unit will look like – Mitchell Marsh and Aiden Markram were an immensely successful duo at the top of the order, arguably LSG’s greatest strengths, and demoting Markram lower down could greatly affect that balance.
The trade-off, however, would be worth it from Ashwin’s perspective. “If Rishabh Pant opens the batting, he will be the best batter of LSG this year. If he doesn’t, that is the problem. I would say Rishabh Pant batting in the powerplay is his best chance to get success, anywhere else, Rishabh himself is finding it difficult in the T20 game,” concluded the Indian spinner.
