Sanjiv Goenka Discusses Rishabh Pant's Trade and Relationship
Rishabh Pant’s time at Lucknow Super Giants was brief, expensive, and relentlessly examined. What it wasn’t, according to franchise owner Sanjiv Goenka, was cold.
Pant has already moved on, traded back to Delhi Capitals ahead of the 2027 IPL season in a high-profile deal. Yet Goenka insists the parting of ways did not slam the door on their relationship.
“Our last conversation wasn’t just about the trade. We have continued to speak even after that,” Goenka said on Shubhankar Mishra’s podcast, offering a rare glimpse into the human side of a blockbuster move that had been reduced to numbers and headlines.
From Record Signing to Quiet Goodbye
Those numbers were staggering. Pant arrived in Lucknow at the 2025 mega auction for Rs 27 crore, the most expensive player in IPL history at the time. LSG handed him the captaincy straight away after KL Rahul’s departure. It was a statement: this was the man to lead a young franchise into its next phase.
The reality never quite matched the ambition. Across two seasons under Pant, Lucknow failed to reach the playoffs. Every misfield, every failed chase, every misjudged call was filtered through the lens of that record price tag.
His captaincy ended before the 2026 season was even over, reportedly at his own request. The scrutiny had been constant, the expectations suffocating. Not long after, the trade came.
Pant was moved back to Delhi Capitals for Rs 15 crore, with India left-arm spinner Kuldeep Yadav heading the other way in a deal valued at Rs 13.5 crore. A marquee wicketkeeper-batter out, a premier spinner in. On paper, a hard-nosed cricket decision.
Yet when Goenka was asked what he told Pant as the player prepared to leave, the answer wasn’t about tactics or money.
“Good luck to him and best wishes. We plan to have dinner one of these days,” he said.
No grand speech. No dramatic farewell. Just a simple message and the suggestion that their paths will cross again away from the cameras.
A Costly Gamble That Didn’t Pay in Playoffs
Pant’s stint in Lucknow was always going to be measured against the size of the cheque. Rs 27 crore brings not only star power, but a demand for immediate, visible success.
It never quite arrived.
LSG, who had hoped for sustained playoff runs with an India star at the helm, instead found themselves trapped in inconsistency. Performances spiked and dipped. The team never developed the ruthless, repeatable edge that defines title contenders.
Pant himself remained a central figure, his presence alone a commercial and cricketing asset. But as the seasons wore on, the gap between the investment and the collective output became too obvious to ignore.
The pressure finally told. The captaincy went. The trade followed.
Yet Goenka’s remarks underline that, inside the franchise, the story wasn’t written only in balance sheets and league tables. The owner still speaks warmly of a player many assumed had become a symbol of an overreach.
While IPL Debated His Price, Tests Confirmed His Class
While his IPL chapter took a sharp turn, Pant’s standing in Indian cricket kept climbing.
The 28-year-old recently turned out in India’s Test series in Sri Lanka, where India won the opening Test in Galle and were held to a draw in Colombo after enforcing the follow-on. Across those days, Pant quietly rewrote a significant piece of India’s record book.
He overtook 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, pushing past Dhoni’s 2,496.
Behind them, the names tell their own story of India’s wicketkeeping lineage: Farokh Engineer with 1,209 runs, Syed Kirmani with 1,109, Kiran More with 901. Pant has moved beyond all of them in a format that still defines reputations in Indian cricket.
He has climbed another list too, nudging past Adam Gilchrist to become the third-highest six-hitter in Test history. It is a statistic that fits the eye test: a keeper-batter who does not merely survive in the longest format, but shapes it with aggression.
So while his IPL numbers at LSG never quite justified the fee in a franchise sense, his broader body of work keeps hardening his status as a generational talent in Indian colours.
Trade Done, Ties Intact
The trade that sent Pant back to Delhi and brought Kuldeep Yadav to Lucknow was framed as a reset for both sides. Delhi reclaimed a familiar face and a proven match-winner. LSG secured a high-class India spinner and financial recalibration.
Yet Goenka’s comments cut against the idea that this was a cold, transactional break.
The communication did not stop with the signatures. The owner still checks in. A dinner is on the cards. There is respect, even after a project that did not deliver the trophies and playoff runs the franchise had imagined when they broke the bank in 2025.
Pant’s IPL story now loops back to Delhi Capitals, the franchise where he first became a star. Lucknow moves into a new phase with Kuldeep Yadav and a different balance of resources. The record fee is gone from their books, but not from the memory of what they tried.
The relationship, though, survives the experiment. And as Pant returns to Delhi with fresh Test records and a point to prove in the IPL, the more intriguing question is no longer about the price LSG once paid, but about how far he can still push his ceiling in the years ahead.
