Rayudu: 'Pretty stubborn' Pant must 'accept the fact that he is struggling'

What's ailing Rishabh Pant? Ambati Rayudu put the Lucknow Super Giants (LSG) captain's "very, very bad patch" in IPL 2025 down to him being "pretty stubborn" about not changing his position in the batting line-up. Rayudu also feels Pant does not have the mindset to play in the middle order and is better suited to play as an opener.

Pant, who was the most expensive buy at the last IPL auction at INR 27 crore, has made just 128 runs in ten innings this season. He's had five single-digit scores, including a duck, and just one half-century. In ESPNcricinfo's MVP list, which takes into account the total impact a player has had on his team, Pant is currently placed 176th. In the match against Punjab Kings (PBKS) on Sunday, he walked out at No. 4 after two early wickets and struggled to score a 17-ball 18 in the 237 chase. LSG went on to lose the match by 37 runs and are currently seventh on the table with six losses in 11 games.

"I think, at this point in time, I'm feeling very sorry for him because he's not been changing his batting order or his approach," Rayudu said on ESPNcricinfo's Time Out. "I think he's being pretty stubborn about how he wants to go about things. It's not working in his favour at the moment. It happens in this sport, to be very honest, and he is going through a very, very bad patch. It can happen to anybody. I just hope that he takes this learning and improves on it and doesn't become even more stubborn, but just accept the fact that he is struggling and start doing things a little differently [and] try and get better every day. That's all you can do.

"I think more than anything it's just the clarity of what he wants to do because Pant ideally for me is an opener in white-ball cricket, because in the middle order he has not been great. I know he loves playing in the middle but he doesn't have the batsmanship that is required or the skill set. Maybe he has the skillset, but not the mindset to execute that."

To be fair, Pant did move himself up and down the order after starting the IPL season at No. 4, going to six in one game, opening in another, then dropping to No. 7, but returning to the preferred No. 4 each time.

On Sunday, after showing early intent with a six over mid-off off Marco Jansen, Pant hit two more boundaries off Yuzvendra Chahal. In the eighth over, looking for a big shot, he charged at Azmatullah Omarzai and swung so hard at the ball that he lost control of the bat, which flew out to midwicket while the catch off the top edge was taken at deep cover. Katey Martin saw a pattern in his dismissals and called that Pant's "downfall".

"... when he charged down giving himself room, [with] nice control down the ground and the next ball he plays an extravagant shot, which we know is Rishabh," Martin said. "But you want him to be able to give himself the best chance possible and we know that he is going to play those expansive - the weird - shots out of nowhere. But I think that's been a real downfall of his, is [that] just out of nowhere he played a shot that you thought, 'oh, that was more reckless than what we're probably typically expecting from them'."

"That shows that mentally he is not very relaxed and very calm," Rayudu added. "At the moment, the word that I would use is he lacks confidence."

Shreyas' relationship with Ponting a big bonus, says Rayudu

While Pant has had a poor season, PBKS captain Shreyas Iyer, another INR 25-plus-crore buy at the auction, has so far had a season to remember. While he's not been too consistent with the bat, he's been lauded for his captaincy, with his team currently second on the table and primed for a playoffs spot.

Rayudu suggested that Iyer's close relationship with head coach Ricky Ponting has been an important factor.

"Shreyas has had this partnership with Ricky Ponting at Delhi [Capitals]," Rayudu said. "They both know each other very well. That is very, very important. You need to know your coach as a captain because both have to be hand in glove. It's a long tournament. You can't be on different pages or [have] different mindsets. And Shreyas actually likes Ricky Ponting a lot. He is someone who is a little more aggressive in terms of his strategies, I think it's a good match that is made in Punjab at the moment. Shreyas definitely as a batsman has improved quite a lot."

Martin highlighted how being a wicketkeeper-captain could also be affecting Pant and that, Iyer suited Ponting's outlook as a head coach more than Pant did when they were together at DC till last season.

"Ponting, going into the auction, he spoke so much about the fact that he wanted to build a team around the captain and he wanted the captain to lead the side," Martin said. "With Shreyas Iyer scoring runs as well, he's been able to translate that into the captaincy and the confidence and vice versa. With Pant, who hasn't had that confidence and hasn't been able to score the runs that he would have liked, I think there's added pressure as a wicketkeeper as well.

"When you're a keeper you have to kind of rely on others around you and [Nicholas] Pooran's probably the next leader. You see him come from the boundary. But when he's in the boundary the majority of the time, it can be a little challenging. So that's the added pressure of keeping and to negate the bowlers from as far back as you can as a wicketkeeper."