Lucknow Super Giants skipper Rishabh Pant’s woes on and off the field just don’t seem to end as he was pulled up for the second time for maintaining a slow over-rate against the Mumbai Indians on Sunday. The Super Giants suffered their third loss in the last four games.
Lucknow Super Giants (LSG) skipper Rishabh Pant was pulled up for the second time for maintaining a slow over-rate during his side’s clash against the Mumbai Indians on Sunday, at the Wankhede Stadium. Mumbai Indians’ innings while batting first ended at nearly 5:20 PM IST, taking approximately 110 minutes to get completed. This was Pant’s second offence with respect to the minimum over-rate requirement and hence was fined Rs 24 Lakh, after being already reprimanded in the earlier LSG vs MI fixture.
Since it was a second offence, not just the captain Pant, the members of LSG’s playing XI, including the impact player, were also fined.
“As this was his team’s second offence of the season under Article 2.22 of the IPL’s Code of Conduct, which pertains to minimum over-rate offences, Pant was fined INR 24 lakhs,” an IPL statement read. “The rest of the members of the Playing XI, including the Impact Player, will be fined either INR six lakhs or 25 per cent of their respective match fees, whichever is lesser.”
Pant’s woes on and off the field don’t seem to end as the wicketkeeper-batter is struggling with his form, having averaged 12.22 while striking at 98.2 and his team too has now lost three games in a row and is slowly being pushed to must-win zone, needing to win three out of their remaining four matches. Pant even tried opening the innings in one game but didn’t really work out as, apart from a half-century, that too a laboured one against the Chennai Super Kings (CSK), the southpaw just hasn’t looked the free-flowing batter he usually is.
LSG’s overdependence on the volume of runs from Mitchell Marsh and Nicholas Pooran has been exposed, as when it wasn’t the case, the Super Giants didn’t get to par scores or were unable to chase down the big targets, as was the case on Sunday. LSG have to win three out of four in the remaining games and they are set to face three teams above them – Punjab Kings, RCB and Gujarat Titans.