‘He prioritised money but did not get the happiness’ – Sadagoppan Ramesh’s intriguing take on Pant-Kuldeep trade for IPL 2027

Sadagoppan Ramesh opined that Rishabh Pant entered the last mega-auction ahead of IPL 2025, looking for a lucrative deal. The former India opener added that despite becoming the highest-paid player in IPL auction history, he didn’t find happiness at LSG (Lucknow Super Giants).

After two underwhelming seasons as a batter and as a captain at LSG, Pant has taken a pay cut from INR 27 crores to INR 15 crores and returned to his former franchise, Delhi Capitals (DC). He will be playing under Axar Patel’s leadership at the Delhi-based franchise. To reacquire Pant’s services, DC has had to trade Kuldeep Yadav to the Super Giants. The left-arm wrist spinner will earn INR 13.50 crore.

“DC never wanted to let go of Pant and never released him even in 2024. They were ready to negotiate with him and urged him not to leave. But Pant was adamant on entering the auction to go for a higher price despite DC offering him 20 to 25 crores. So he prioritised money but did not get the happiness he wanted with LSG. Otherwise he would not have left LSG for DC,” Ramesh said while talking about the trade on his YouTube channel.

“DC went till 21 crores for Pant in the 2024 auction. Yet they’ve got him again now for 15 crores. So it’s turned out to be a clever move from DC. Pant also reached a situation where he desperately wanted to return to DC. When the price is high, the pressure to perform becomes exponentially higher and that leads to drop in performance. That’s the lesson to be learnt from the Rishabh Pant situation,” he added.

“LSG is at a definite advantage” – S Ramesh on the winner of the Pant-Kuldeep trade

Ramesh believes that LSG are the winners of the trade, as he backed Kuldeep to pick up 15 to 20 wickets every season. However, he questioned whether the wicketkeeper-batter will be able to score 450 to 500 runs every season.

“LSG is at the advantageous situation with this trade. Kuldeep has the potential to bowl 336 deliveries in a season so his chances of taking 20 wickets in a season is extremely high. Barring one bad season this year, Kuldeep generally takes close to 15 wickets every season. For Rishabh Pant to match that, he has to score 450 to 500 runs. LSG is at a definite advantage because Kuldeep’s chances of picking up 15 to 20 wickets is much higher than Pant scoring 450+ runs,” said Ramesh (via the aforementioned source).