Pant, Pooran and a run out of games: LSG's IPL 2026 is slipping away
Seven matches, two wins, five losses, and the bottom of the IPL 2026 table. That is where Lucknow Super Giants are after a 40-run defeat at home to Rajasthan Royals on Wednesday night at Ekana, and it is a hard place in the table to be. The teams above them all have at least a path back. LSG have a captain still searching for his form, a retained overseas batter averaging in single digits, and a bowling attack that has leaked boundaries in every phase of the innings. If this does not turn over the next two weeks, the season is effectively gone.
The easy reading is that Rishabh Pant is the problem. The easy reading is half right. Pant has been underwhelming with the bat since LSG paid Rs 27 crore for him at the 2025 mega auction to make him the most expensive signing in the competition's history, and 2026 has not been the reset everyone was hoping for. But the bigger issue for the team this season is the Rs 21 crore retention sitting underneath him.
The Nicholas Pooran problem
Pooran was the Orange Cap winner of IPL 2025. He hit 524 runs in 14 games at a strike rate above 196 and finished with a tournament-leading 40 sixes. LSG retained him at Rs 21 crore because of exactly those numbers. Through six innings in 2026, Pooran has 51 runs at an average a fraction above 10 and a strike rate around 85. No middle-order piece in the retention list this cycle has returned less on the outlay.
It is not a technical puzzle so much as a rhythm one. Pooran is checking the risky shots early and falling to low-percentage ones later, and by the time he is set the pressure is already on. LSG's team structure is built around him hitting from ball one. Without that release, the back end of the innings is being asked of players who are not the finishers the scorecard thinks they should be.
Australia keeper-batter Josh Inglis, the Rs 8.6 crore overseas signing from the auction, is expected to join the squad before the May 4 league match away at Mumbai Indians. His availability was always late because of his wedding on April 18 and a planned few weeks with family, which LSG knew when they bought him. If Pooran does not find runs in the next two outings, Inglis arrives into a starting role and Pooran is quietly parked.
Pant, the captaincy and where to bat
Pant's own numbers this season are not much better. The conversation around him has drifted from what he does with the bat to where he should bat, and whether he should keep the gloves. Mitchell Marsh has been the closest thing LSG have had to a reliable top-order presence and was 55 off 41 before he fell on Wednesday against Rajasthan. Pant has kept shuffling between three and five and has not nailed a position down. Captaining an IPL side with a team this young is hard enough. Doing it while chasing your own form is harder.
The tactical call that keeps getting deferred is whether to free Pant up at number four, let Marsh open alongside Aiden Markram, and move the rest of the order around that spine. It is the sort of change most sides make two or three games into a bad run. LSG have dragged it to seven.
The bowling will not rescue the batting
Prince Yadav has been the one uplifting story. He has bowled inside the top three of the economy list for LSG and picked up wickets in the powerplay. Around him the picture is thinner. Mohammed Shami has looked short of rhythm, Avesh Khan has struggled with his lines, and Manimaran Siddharth has been expensive through the middle overs. On Wednesday, a 160 target was supposed to be the night the batting did the rescuing. LSG were bowled out for 119 in 18 overs instead.
This is the sort of middle-stretch an IPL season often turns on. Seven games are left. Four wins from those would put them on twelve points and probably still out of the top four. Five wins, maybe. The maths is not kind, and the maths is usually the easy part.
What actually has to change
LSG need Pooran to either hit, quickly, or move. They need Pant to pick a batting position and leave it alone for a month. They need at least one of Shami or Avesh to find the rhythm that was the reason they were bought in the first place. And they need to stop conceding the powerplay, which has been the single biggest leak since the season started.
None of that is hidden. The fix list has been the same since the third or fourth round. What is running out is the window to try anything new. If Inglis walks in on May 4 and the season is already done, the Rs 8.6 crore he is costing becomes another line on a spreadsheet that already has too many red entries.
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