Why Is Rishabh Pant Opening For LSG In IPL 2025 Clash Against Gujarat Titans?

For the first time since Indian Premier League (IPL) 2016, Rishabh Pant is back as the opening batter. The former Delhi Capitals captain on Saturday walked out with Aiden Markram in chase 181 at the Ekana Stadium in Lucknow for Lucknow Super Giants.

Rishabh Pant Opens For LSG In IPL 2025

Pant, who has batted at No.4 in four of the five matches played so far as he walked in after in-form Nicholas Pooran managed to score only 19 runs. He didn’t bat in the match against Kolkata Knight Riders in the last match.

Pant had paired up with Markram as designated opener Mitchell Marsh rushed back to Australia due to personal reasons.

Despite his struggles with the bat, Pant has managed to lead LSG to three wins from five games this season.

Pant had denied before the season that he would be opening for his new team, but the current necessity has forced him to be back in that position where he had scored his second highest T20 score of 116 not out.

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In the IPL, Pant had opened the innings in four matches previously and all of them have come in IPL 2016. The left-hander has scored a total of 104 runs with a good chunk of 69 runs coming in the match against now-defunct Gujarat Lions.

However, Pant has gone past his previous best score of 15 this season with a score of 21 off 17 balls as he took LSG to 65/0 in 6.1 overs which had four boundaries.

Pant’s battle for runs continues against Gujarat Titans

But as soon as it looked like he would convert that into a big score, Pant danced down the track to a length ball against Prasidh Krishna and top edged the ball into the hands of Washington Sunday at third man.

Earlier in the match, GT opener Shubman Gill (60 off 38 balls) and Sai Sudharsan (56 off 37 balls) looked in full control of the innings by going at 10 runs per over. But LSG bowlers managed to peg them back from 120/1 in 12.1 overs to 180/6 in 20 overs.

Spinners Digvesh Rathi (1-30) and Ravi Bishnoi (2-36) and pacer Avesh Khan (1-32) were pick of LSG bowlers.