Sanjiv Goenka on Rishabh Pant: A Trade and Continued Connection
The most expensive signing in IPL history has already left Lucknow, but the story between Rishabh Pant and Lucknow Super Giants owner Sanjiv Goenka clearly hasn’t drawn a hard line.
Pant’s return to Delhi Capitals ahead of the 2027 Indian Premier League season looked, on paper, like a clean break: a high-profile trade, a recalibration of resources, and a franchise moving on from a record gamble that never quite delivered. Goenka, though, insists the connection runs deeper than a balance sheet and a scoreboard.
On Shubhankar Mishra’s podcast, the LSG owner was asked about his final conversation with Pant before the wicketkeeper-batter was traded back to Delhi. Goenka pushed back at the idea that there even was a “final” conversation.
“Our last conversation wasn’t just about the trade. We have continued to speak even after that,” he said, underlining that the dialogue hasn’t stopped just because the jersey has changed.
Pressed on what he told Pant as the player exited Lucknow, Goenka kept it simple, almost disarmingly so for a move involving crores and headlines.
“Good luck to him and best wishes. We plan to have dinner one of these days,” he said.
It was a reminder: behind the auctions and appraisals, there are relationships that don’t always follow the fixture list.
From Record Signing to Quiet Exit
Pant’s Lucknow chapter was never going to be a low-key subplot. He arrived at the 2025 mega auction for a staggering Rs 27 crore, the highest price tag the IPL had ever seen. LSG didn’t just buy a star; they handed him the keys. With KL Rahul gone, Pant was installed as captain, the face and voice of a new era.
The script, though, didn’t match the billing.
Across his two seasons as LSG captain, the franchise failed to reach the playoffs. For a team that had invested more than any other in one player, every misstep felt magnified. Every loss sharpened the scrutiny. The question wasn’t just whether Pant could lead; it was whether the entire project around him had been misjudged.
As the 2026 season wore on, the pressure told in a different way. Pant was relieved of the captaincy before the campaign even concluded, reportedly at his own request. Not long after, the trade everyone had whispered about became reality.
Pant went back to Delhi Capitals for Rs 15 crore. In return, Lucknow secured India spinner Kuldeep Yadav in a deal valued at Rs 13.5 crore. The numbers shifted, the squads reshaped, and the league moved on. But the sense of unfinished business around Pant’s time in Lucknow lingers.
A Franchise Left Wanting, a Player Still Rising
From LSG’s perspective, the Pant experiment never produced the consistency a Rs 27 crore investment demands. The playoffs remained out of reach. The narrative hardened: massive outlay, modest returns.
Yet Pant himself never drifted out of Indian cricket’s front rank.
At 28, he remains central to India’s Test ambitions. His recent series in Sri Lanka underlined that status. India won the opening Test in Galle, then watched Sri Lanka bat out a long, stubborn final day in Colombo after being forced to follow on. Across that series, Pant quietly rewrote a piece of history.
He surged past MS Dhoni to become India’s leading run-scorer as a designated wicketkeeper in away or neutral Test matches. Pant now sits on 2,534 runs in those conditions at an average north of 41, nudging past Dhoni’s 2,496. Behind them, the names tell their own story of Indian keeping royalty: Farokh Engineer with 1,209, Syed Kirmani on 1,109, Kiran More with 901.
Pant has also climbed another leaderboard that suits his temperament perfectly. He has overtaken Adam Gilchrist to become the third-highest six-hitter in Test cricket, a statistic that captures the audacity he brings to a format that often resists it.
So while his IPL stint in Lucknow is filed under “unfulfilled”, his broader career arc points in a very different direction.
A Trade Done, But Not a Breakup
The IPL can be ruthless with its verdicts. A record signing who doesn’t take a team deep into May is quickly branded a misfit. A high-profile captaincy that ends early is framed as a failure.
Goenka’s comments cut against that cold assessment. They suggest a more nuanced reality: a relationship that survived a tough professional call.
The owner who once staked Rs 27 crore on Pant now watches him wear Delhi’s colours again. The player who carried the weight of that fee and the captaincy in Lucknow has moved back to the franchise where his IPL journey truly took off.
Yet somewhere away from the noise of auctions and analysis, the two are still talking. Still planning that dinner.
Pant’s IPL future now turns on what he can build in his second life at Delhi Capitals. For Lucknow, the bet shifts to Kuldeep Yadav and a different kind of balance. The trade is done, the squads are set.
The real question is what Pant does next with the bat that keeps rewriting records, and whether the league’s most expensive gamble to date ends up looking very different in hindsight.
