Just days after Delhi Capitals co-owner Parth Jindal attributed Rishabh Pant’s departure to factors beyond financial considerations, the team’s newly appointed head coach, Hemang Badani, offered a different perspective.
Why Rishabh Pant left Delhi Capitals ahead of IPL 2025 auction? DC Head coach reveals
While Delhi Capitals expressed their desire to retain Pant, Badani revealed that the former captain was eager to explore his market value in the IPL mega auction. And Pant's decision to go under the hammer made him the most expensive player in the history of IPL after Lucknow Super Giants grabbed him for a record-breaking sum of Rs 27 crore in the recently-held mega auction in Jeddah.
"I think it's the other way around. He wanted not to be retained. He said he wanted to to the auction and test the market. If you want to retain a player, both parties (the team and the player) have to agree on certain things. We tried talking to him, the management tried talking to him. There were a lot of phone calls and messages exchanged," Hemang Badani told Subramaniam Badrinath in a YouTube show.
"Yes (Delhi Capitals were interested in retaining him). He said he wanted to go to the auction and test the mark. He said he had a feeling that there were chances he would get more money than the highest cap for retained player, which is Rs 18 crore," he further stated.
"And, at the end of the day, he felt he was worth more. And the market said the same thing. He got Rs 27 crore. Good for him. He is a very good player. We will obviously miss him. But, life goes on," Badani concluded.
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Meanwhile, earlier DC co-owner Parth Jindal revealed that the franchise made every possible effort to retain Pant ahead of the IPL mega auction. However, differences emerged between the franchise and the star wicketkeeper-batter regarding their vision for the team's future.
"It was just a different philosophy of how he wanted the franchise to operate and how us - the owners - wanted the franchise to operate. That's what caused it (Pant's departure). There's nothing to do with money,” Jindal had told 'ESPNCricinfo'.
"Money's never been an issue for Rishabh. And money's never been an issue for us. I guess the three of us (Kiran Grandhi, Jindal and Pant) were on different wavelengths. He took a call at the end of it. We tried everything, but he decided eventually that it was time to move on," he had added.
DC's full squad for IPL 2025:
Axar Patel, Kuldeep Yadav, Tristan Stubbs, Abishek Porel, Mitchell Starc (Rs. 11.75 crore), KL Rahul (Rs. 14 crore), Harry Brook (Rs. 6.25 crore), Jake Fraser-McGurk (Rs. 9 crore), T. Natarajan (Rs. 10.75 crore), Karun Nair (Rs. 50 lakh), Sameer Rizvi (Rs. 95 lakh), Ashutosh Sharma (Rs. 3.80 crore), Mohit Sharma (Rs. 2.20 crore), Faf du Plessis (Rs. 2 crore), Mukesh Kumar (Rs. 8 crore), Darshan Nalkande (Rs. 30 lakh), Vipraj Nigam (Rs. 50 lakh), Dushmantha Chameera (Rs. 75 lakh), Donovan Ferreira (Rs. 75 lakh), Ajay Mandal (Rs. 30 lakh), Manvanth Kumar (Rs. 30 lakh), Tripurana Vijay (Rs. 30 lakh), Madhav Tiwari (Rs. 40 lakh).
