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Lucknow Super Giants (LSG) captain Rishabh Pant revealed that he wants to switch off from cricket for a few days after his team's Indian Premier League (IPL) 2025 campaign ended with a six-wicket defeat against Royal Challengers Bengaluru (RCB) at Sawai Mansingh Stadium in Jaipur.
Pant, who will now be seen featuring for India in the upcoming Test series against England, wants to prepare for that with a good frame of mind. Pant smashed a hard-hitting century -- 118 off 61 balls -- to power LSG to 227 for three against RCB in the final league fixture of IPL 2025.
But RCB, riding on Jitesh Sharma's 33-ball 85 and Mayank Agarwal's 23-ball 41 duo's unbeaten 107-run stand for the fifth wicket, pulled off a memorable win to seal their berth in Qualifier 1.
"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.
The LSG skipper rued the absence of key bowlers for a good part of the season owing to injury.
"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 said at the presentation ceremony.
LSG's left-arm seamer Mohsin Khan missed the entire tournament, and their pace sensation Mayank Yadav also spent most of the tournament on the sidelines. Mayank briefly returned but looked undercooked and was ruled out again with another back injury.
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After a poor season, Pant finally got going as he smashed 11 fours and eight sixes during his scintillating knock.
"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 said.
The five-Test match series between India and England is scheduled to start from June 20 where Shubman Gill will lead the side and Rishabh Pant will be his deputy.
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