Rishabh Pant scored a brilliant century (118 off 61 balls) for Lucknow Super Giants against Royal Challengers Bengaluru in IPL 2025's final league match, but RCB secured victory through Jitesh Sharma's 85 and Mayank Agarwal's 41 to qualify for the playoffs. After the match, Pant expressed his desire to take a break before focusing on the upcoming England Test tour.
RCB's successful chase was anchored by Jitesh Sharma and Mayank Agarwal's unbroken 107-run partnership for the fifth wicket, following Virat Kohli's innings of 54 off 30 balls.
Go Beyond The Boundary with our YouTube channel. SUBSCRIBE NOW!"Just want to switch off for a few days, not think about cricket and then the England series is coming up and just preparing for that in a good frame of mind," Pant said at the presentation ceremony.
Pant acknowledged that LSG's campaign was hampered by injury concerns to key bowlers throughout the season.
"Eventually you got to play 40 overs of good cricket. 20 overs will definitely not save you in a T20 game and that's been our story. There were a lot of injury concerns before the tournament, that's something that hurt us going through the season," Pant stated.
LSG missed left-arm seamer Mohsin Khan for the entire season, while pace bowler Mayank Yadav spent most of the tournament injured, briefly returning before being sidelined again with a back injury.
Pant's century included 11 fours and eight sixes, marking a return to form after an underwhelming season.
"I was feeling well with each and every match but sometimes it just doesn't come off. Today I made sure that if I am starting well I should make a big one. Like all the experienced players do, learning from the best always. Whenever you get a start, try to make it big as possible. I was trying to play the field, how they were going to bowl, that was something I kept in mind. Playing through the line and looking for the areas and the gaps and kept it very simple. Played every ball with the same intensity and kept on playing with the same intensity throughout the innings," Pant explained.
Match winner Jitesh Sharma reflected on his remarkable performance after the game.
"I will not be able to express my thoughts! I can't believe I played that knock. When Virat bhai was out, I was just thinking of taking it deep," said Player of the Match Jitesh.
"As my mentor and guru Dinesh (Karthik) anna says, just take it deep. I was getting cramps because all the load was on me! I have Virat bhai, Krunal bhai and Bhuvi bhai with me. I feel excited that I'm playing with them. We want to enjoy the moment. But we'll try to recover well. We'll look to carry the momentum into the next match," Jitesh added.
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