Will Lucknow Super Giants (LSG) captain Rishabh Pant be able to make a comeback soon in the ongoing IPL 2026 season? This question has been raised because the keeper-batsman has suffered a fresh injury. On 15 April, Pant injured his elbow while batting against Royal Challengers Bangalore (RCB) fast bowler Josh Hazlewood at the M. Chinnaswamy Stadium in Bengaluru.
Due to an injured elbow, the LSG captain could not play most of the match. He eventually came out to bat, but missed the second innings completely. Without their captain on the field, LSG recorded their third defeat in 5 matches of the season.
It doesn’t look like Rishabh Pant will play the rest of the season – Kris Srikkanth
Former India batsman Kris Srikkanth claimed that Rishabh Pant may miss the remainder of the current season due to injury. The former batsman also predicted that LSG has no chance of getting a play-off ticket this year.
While praising the team’s bowling department, Srikkanth took a dig at the team’s batting set-up, terming it a ‘terrible side’.
Srikkanth said in his YouTube video, “Rishabh Pant doesn’t think he will play the rest of the season. LSG is a bad team. Only their bowling is good enough. But now five matches have passed and their batting is not going to do wonders at all. Everyone says LSG have not given 200 runs yet. But they have to score 200 runs to get it back, which they never do.”
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Kris Srikkanth asks LSG to keep three foreign batsmen on the bench
Rishabh Pant’s innings lasted only 6 balls and RCB fast bowler Bhuvneshwar Kumar dismissed him for only 1 run. Apart from Mitchell Marsh, other top order batsmen of LSG were complete flops against RCB. As a result, they could only score 146 runs for 10 wickets in their limit of 20 overs.
The former Team India cricketer criticized the batting combination of Lucknow Super Giants in cruel words. He suggests the team management to give a chance to some new talent like Ben Marsh, Aiden Markram and Nicholas Pooran.
“LSG batted very poorly and it was unwatchable. Markram is a dirty cricketer. Mitchell Marsh, Nicholas Pooran and Markram should all be dropped. Enough of waiting for them to score big. Sit all three and bring in new guys as replacements. Anyway, they have no chance of qualifying now,” he said in the video.
Srikkanth knocks LSG out of IPL 2026 playoff race
Uncapped Indian batsmen, Ayush Badoni (38) and Mukul Chaudhary (39) helped the team post a total of 146 runs, which was not enough to prevent defending champions RCB from claiming victory in the match. Bengaluru won the match with 5 wickets and 29 balls remaining.
Srikkanth said that LSG needs to rely on its young batsmen to score most of the runs, which is a big drawback for the team. Due to lack of consistency in batting, the former cricketer ruled the Super Giants out of the play-off race with immediate effect.
“Imagine LSG relying on Ayush Badoni, Mukul Choudhary and Abdul Samad to save them. That’s the kind of team they are at the moment. They are definitely out of contention already. They don’t give any confidence that they are going to be on fire with the bat,” Srikkanth said.
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