Lucknow Super Giants captain Rishabh Pant said that money was not the main thing for him. The wicketkeeper-batter earned a record bid at the Indian Premier League mega-auction in 2024. When LSG placed the final bid for Rishabh at Rs 27 crore, it made the left-hander the most expensive player in the history of the tournament.
After being announced as the captain of LSG on Monday, January 20, Pant said that money was not the most important thing for him. Pant explained that if he were to get less money than he expected in the IPL auction, it would hurt him like most other people. However, he added that he has had to work actively to keep the money conversation out of his mind. Pant said that he still convinces himself that money is not the most important thing, and that it is only a by-product of what he was doing on the field.
“The thought process is very simple. When I came to the auction, I did not have any price in mind. It did not matter if I was bought for Rs 5 crore or Rs 10 crore in my head. And I had to convince myself of that. It is not easy, but you have to tell yourself that every day, because you do feel disappointed. You have to convince yourself that this (money) is not the priority list; this is only a part of it. Getting that money is amazing, but thinking about it every day should not be the main thing,” Rishabh Pant said on Hotstar.
NO PRICE-TAG PRESSURE: RISHABH PANT
Asked if there was any pressure on him given the hefty price tag, Pant said that as long as owner Sanjeev Goenka was not worried, he did not have any problem.
“If the owner says that he does not have any pressure, then I do not have any pressure (laughs),” Pant added.
Interestingly, Rishabh Pant had teased his exit from his previous franchise, Delhi Capitals, with a tweet ahead of the IPL Auction. Rishabh had asked his fans and followers if he would find takers in the auction in case he was going to leave the Capitals.
“If I go to the auction, will I be sold or not and for how much?” he had asked.
He was subsequently released by Delhi ahead of the 2025 auction. The franchise had opted to retain Axar Patel (Rs 16.5 crore), Kuldeep Yadav (Rs 13.5 crore), Tristan Stubbs (Rs 10 crore), and Abishek Porel (Rs 4 crore).
Pant had stressed after his exit, that him leaving Delhi Capitals was not about money, but had never elaborated on the matter.
As speculations rose about the split after the auction, newly-appointed Delhi coach Hemang Badani had countered Rishabh Pant’s words, stating that the former DC captain left because he simply wanted more money.
“Yes (Delhi Capitals were interested in retaining him). He said he wanted to go to the auction and test the market. He said he had a feeling that there were chances he would get more money than the highest cap for the retained player, which is Rs 18 crore,” Badani had told Subramaniam Badrinath in a YouTube show.
