Injuries to some of the crucial players made "a lot of gaps" which made LSG's poor show in IPL 2025, according to captain Rishabh Pant soon after his side became mathematically out of playoff contention with Monday's defeat at the hands of Sunrisers Hyderabad in Lucknow.
After deciding to bat, LSG scored 205 runs in total, thanks to half-centuries from opening batters Mitchell Marsh and Aiden Markram. The team's score remained "at least 10 runs short," as per Pant, since SRH chased down the total with 10 balls to spare, courtesy mainly of Abhishek Sharma's rampage 59 off 20 balls with several sixes.
It wasn't our season," Pant conceded. "We realized that coming into the tournament we had a number of gaps caused by injuries. We chose not to sulk about it, but it did become difficult to replace those gaps."
Pant seemed to be pointing towards the prolonged absence of some key squad members. Left-arm pacer Mohsin Khan was out of action for the whole season, while fast bowler Mayank Yadav—one of LSG's key retainments—spent large parts of the season on the sidelines with injuries. While Mayank did make a stop-start return to action, he was unfit and soon was ruled out again due to a back problem. Other headline signings, Avesh Khan and Akash Deep, struggled with fitness too and only came into the playing XI late in the season.
"If we had our intended bowling attack in place, then the narrative could have been quite different," Pant added. "But this is cricket—occasionally things go your way, occasionally not. We must be proud of how we have played and try to see the positives rather than simply moan about the negatives."
When asked for any positives from LSG's campaign, Pant cited the team's batting prowess. "There is definitely a lot of firepower with the bat—that's the biggest positive," he said. "Even our bowlers bowled well at times but were a little inconsistent. We did our best to try and control the situation.
We did well in bits and pieces," said Pant. "Players were filling in and patching up problems in the first half of the season. But in the second half, it became harder to keep up with teams that were playing consistently well.
The one standout for LSG was rookie legspinner Digvesh Rathi. The 25-year-old Delhi lad made a good impression on his IPL debut, picking 14 wickets in 12 games with an economy of 8.08. On Monday, he put up a good show with 2 for 37, proving to be LSG's top bowler for the game.
"Rathi has certainly been a pick for us this season," Pant said. "It was nice to watch the manner in which he bowled. He's one of the positives, but we still have a lot of areas where we need to work as a team and become better and stronger."
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