DC vs LSG, IPL 2025: Ahead of the Delhi Capitals’ Ashutosh Sharma snatching away the Indian Premier League 2025 match against Lucknow Super Giants on Monday by one wicket, an old tweet by LSG’s new skipper Rishabh Pant garnered all the attention.
It all started with a tweet.
Just past midnight on October 12 last year, Rishabh Pant wondered how things would pan out if he went into the auction. That was the first sign that all was not perfect between Delhi Capitals and their most iconic player. Pant got an answer to his then-hypothetical question emphatically a month and a half later, going for ₹27 crore in the IPL 2025 mega auction to Lucknow Super Giants. As fate would have it, Pant faced his old franchise in his very first game in this year’s IPL.
The history:
“Definitely a lot of emotion with DC,” Pant said at the toss. “Everyone knows I’ve only played for DC my whole life, but it’s a different experience (now). I hope I can give my best over here and just make a difference.”
Ever since his debut as a teenager in 2016, Pant had been a Delhi boy. He’d seen the team’s name and fortunes change, his own form ebb and flow, he’d led the side and been a key player. He played 111 matches for Delhi, hitting 3284 runs. The combination of average (35.3) and strike rate (149) were outstanding. It looked for all the world as if Pant would end up as that rare IPL breed of being a one-franchise player. Certainly, no one thought that if a team had someone like Rishabh Pant on their roster, they weren’t going to let him go.
The IPL 2025 auction:
But sometimes, even fairytales end. After Pant’s tweet, it soon became clear that he wouldn’t be among Delhi’s retained players. He duly entered the auction, and LSG broke the bank for him with a record ₹27 crore, the highest ever for a player. Interestingly, for all the divergence of views between Pant and DC, his former franchise actually raised their Right-to-Match card when the bid was won at ₹20.75 crore. LSG promptly raised it to a level DC couldn’t match, and bagged Pant.
DC co-owner Parth Jindal would say later to ESPNCricinfo, “The minute we didn’t retain him, I knew he was gone… I love the boy like my own brother. He took a call at the end of the day. We tried our best. He took the decision, and we have to respect it.” That DC still tried to RTM him said that they hadn’t cut the emotional cord completely with Pant.
The game
As a batter, Pant had one of his more forgettable outings with a six-ball duck, despite coming in at a luxurious 133 for 2 in the 12th over. As captain, he had to marshal an attack of Shardul Thakur (injury replacement), M Siddharth (4th IPL match), Digvesh Rathi (IPL debut), Ravi Bishnoi, Shahbaz Ahmed and Prince Yadav (IPL debut). No one thought before the game that this attack could defend a score lesser than 240.
Pant juggled that attack around with fine instincts, and it needed an out-of-the-world innings from Ashutosh Sharma to snatch a one-wicket win in the last over. Pant took a brilliant catch too, sending back Sameer Rizvi. And he had the gumption to give Shahbaz the 20th over, a move that nearly paid off.
Forget the 27 crore-price tag, the fact that Pant the captain brought LSG so close to an impossible win despite a personal batting failure, is reason enough for the team to look to the rest of the tournament with some hope.
