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After being roped in by the Lucknow Super Giants for an incredible Rs 27 crore at the IPL 2025 mega auction, Rishabh Pant became the most expensive player in IPL history. Sunrisers Hyderabad and LSG engaged in a fierce bidding war for the star, but the Sanjiv Goenka-owned team ultimately prevailed with a price of Rs 20.75 crore. But that was not the end of LSG's difficulties. The LSG team had to submit a final bid of Rs 27 crore to get Pant's services after the Delhi Capitals chose to use their Right To Match (RTM) card.
Goenka on buying Pant
Goenka discussed the selection, stating that the team used the money it had set aside for the India wicketkeeper-batter to purchase Pant. He went on to say that LSG's success in the bidding war thus far was free of ego.
"No no, not at all. Nothing like that at all. This is not about vanity at all. Ego nahi hai [There's no ego here]. I did not have that in mind at all. We had structured the auction in a certain way and Pant was an integral part of our plans. We had done some budgeting for him," Goenka told Cricbuzz.
"Look we could not get Bhuvneshwar Kumar and we went for Akash Deep. We wanted two Indian fast bowlers and we spent INR 9.75 crore on Avesh (Khan) and INR 8 crore on Akash Deep. This was not about one individual player. It was not about egos. Did we want to have the most expensive player? No. At the end of the day this does not mean very much to the franchise. Eventually it is about performance and how the team balance looks," he added.
LSG bought 19 players at the auction, after keeping five players in their retention list including Nicholas Pooran, Ravi Bishnoi, Mayank Yadav, Mohsin Khan, and Ayush Badoni.
Pant was by far their most expensive purchase, with Avesh Khan (Rs 9.75 crore) coming in second and Akash Deep (Rs 8 crore) third. Pant and Pooran are given extra responsibility because Mitchell Marsh and Aiden Markram, the probable openers, are not the strongest duo in the tournament.
