Rishabh Pant's maiden outing as Lucknow Super Giants captain in IPL 2025 was a forgettable one. With the bat, he was out for a six-ball duck and then saw Delhi Capitals, his former team, chase 210, thanks to an unbeaten 66 off 31 balls from Ashutosh Sharma.
Could LSG have scored more, especially after having been 133 for 1 in the 12th over with Mitchell Marsh and Nicholas Pooran in scintillating form? Did the last five overs, where they managed just 39 runs, cost them? Pant didn't think so.
"I think we had enough runs on the board," Pant told JioHotstar, the host broadcaster, after the one-wicket defeat in Vizag. "Our batters batted really well. We might have lost momentum in between overs 13-17, but it was a pretty good score on this wicket."
Lance Klusener, LSG's assistant coach, read the situation differently. "If I have to put a finger on it, I would like to say we've probably left 20 or 30 runs with the bat out there. That was probably why we ended up being under pressure with the ball," he said when asked if dew played its part later during their defence.
"I thought they [DC] finished well with the bat, but the reason why we're in that position is because we didn't score enough runs, which we should have. I thought when the bowlers got it right, there was a little bit of spin, so I thought it was a very good wicket. There was a little bit in there for everybody.
"I thought bowling was probably a little bit rougher than the batting, but that's why I'm saying possibly with the experience and the batting power we have, I think we left a few runs out there this evening. I think we play in three days' time, so we've got to just make sure the youngsters are positive. We need to keep them believing in their ability."
Klusener also underlined a slightly grim reality LSG have been forced to contend with, courtesy the injuries to some of their key fast bowlers like Mohsin Khan, Avesh Khan, Mayank Yadav and Akash Deep.
On Monday, they fielded just two frontline pacers in Shardul Thakur, Mohsin's injury replacement, and rookie Prince Yadav. With Marsh playing the entire season only as a specialist batter, LSG ended up picking four spinners.
"At the moment, we don't have a lot of reserves with the ball, so we're going to have to just probably mix and match until we start getting players back," Klusener said. "But that's just the nature of it. We're going to have to stand up and stand tall with the bat in Hyderabad [venue of their next game] as we saw in the first game."
"We're looking forward to that, but as I said, it's an opportunity for some youngsters as well, getting their first opportunity. I was really happy for Shardul Thakur - two wickets in the first over. Someone who's spent some time with us, he got an opportunity to play this year's IPL."
Pant, meanwhile, wanted to quickly move on from the defeat. He wasn't willing to look back on the "luck factor" either as a turning point - the reference being a stumping chance he missed in the final over off Mohit Sharma which if he had taken, with DC needing six off six with one wicket in hand, would've closed the game out for LSG.
"Definitely luck plays a little bit of part in the game for sure," he said. "If it would've missed the pad, it would've been a big chance for stumping. But these things happen in cricket. Instead of focusing on these things we should play good cricket instead of thinking about the luck factor."