'Became tougher and tougher': Heartbroken Rishabh Pant opens up after LSG elimination

NEW DELHI: Captain Rishabh Pant on Monday acknowledged that the Lucknow Super Giants (LSG) struggled to fill the gaps left by injured key bowlers, as their six-wicket defeat to Sunrisers Hyderabad (SRH) ended their hopes of making the IPL 2025 playoffs.The defeat marked the end of a challenging campaign for LSG, whose bowling unit remained under pressure throughout the season due to multiple injury setbacks."Definitely it could have been one of our best seasons but coming into the tournament we had a lot of gaps, injuries and as a team we decided to not talk about that, but it became difficult to fill those gaps for us," Pant told the broadcaster after the loss.LSG were plagued by injuries even before the tournament began, with Mohsin Khan, Avesh Khan, Akash Deep, and Mayank Yadav sidelined. Though they roped in Shardul Thakur mid-season and saw Avesh and Akash return to action, Mayank’s participation was limited to just a couple of games before injury ruled him out again."The way we planned the auction, if we would have had the same bowling.. but this is cricket, sometimes things go your way and sometimes they don't, we take pride in the way we played and take the positives from the season than the negative side."Despite his own struggles with the bat, Pant pointed to LSG's batting strength as a major takeaway."We have a strong batting line up, have enough firepower and that is the biggest positive for the season," he said.Reflecting on the campaign, Pant admitted the team couldn’t keep up with rivals as the playoff race intensified."The first half of the season we played really well but the second half it became tougher and tougher to catch up with the teams on the brighter side," he added.He also lauded young spinner Digvesh Rathi’s emergence as a bright spot in an otherwise underwhelming campaign."(Digvesh) Rathi has come up nicely for us, his first season, the way he bowled, he is one of the positives, but you need to keep improving yourself and get better and better as the seasons go," Pant noted.