Lucknow Super Giants head coach Justin Langer has come out swinging in defence of captain Rishabh Pant, waving away mounting pressure with a single‑shot detail from the practice arena: a brutal, unrecorded blitz of 95 off 30–40 balls in a recent internal match. The comment, made on the heels of yet another LSG loss to Mumbai Indians, frames Pant not as a man out of rhythm but as a latent‑explosion waiting for the right window in the middle.
In a media interaction, Langer described how the net‑session left the coaching staff in genuine awe. “We played a practice game here two days ago, and Rishi… maybe 95 off 40 or 30 balls — you’re just looking at it and you go, ‘Oh my gosh, that’s Rishabh Pant at his very best,’” the Australian said. The message was clear: the talent and explosiveness that earned Pant the IPL’s record Rs‑27‑crore tag are still intact, and the current white‑ball run is more about sequencing than substance.
That stance was issued after a high‑risk, high‑glamour move that backfired in the short term. Against Mumbai, Pant opted to push himself down the order, sliding Nicholas Pooran up to the middle to leverage his power‑hitting. The tactic produced a blistering 63 off 21 balls from the West Indian, but the captain himself could only manage 15 as the innings bled momentum. The 229‑target looked gettable on a 220–230‑wicket, yet LSG fell short, deepening their tail‑end plunge in the points table.
Rather than walk it back, Langer chose to frame the reshuffle as “selfless” leadership. “He selflessly moved down the order to let Nicky P bat, whose batting was unbelievable,” Langer explained, suggesting that the calculus was about maximising the team’s kill‑ratio in the middle overs, not protecting the captain from failure. The coach also dismissed the idea that the price tag or the spotlight is weighing on Pant, insisting that leadership pressure is something the batter understands and lives with every day.
On his own, Pant acknowledged that the team left “10–15 runs” on the table after a strong start. He refused to throw the bowlers under the bus, instead saying the side needs a mix of luck and higher‑intensity effort if they are to claw back into the playoff race.
For now, Langer’s 95‑off‑30‑balls story is less a statistical argument and more a psychological one: if Pant can produce that in the nets, the coach believes the next IPL‑screamer in his own boots is not far away. The question for fans and critics is whether that net‑violence will finally erupt on the big‑stage before the season runs out on LSG.
