The departure of Rishabh Pant from Delhi Capitals has been one of the most talked about topics among cricket fans. In the IPL mega auction, the Indian wicket-keeper was bought by Lucknow Super Giants for whopping 27 crore. Meanwhile, the owner of Delhi Capitals Parth Jindal has revealed the reason for the exit of Pant from the Delhi based franchise.
Parth Jindal said the team tried their best to keep Rishabh Pant before the IPL auction, but the star wicketkeeper batter had different ideas about how the team should work, which led to his exit.
Was Money The Reason For Rishabh Pant’s Exit?
While talking to ESPNCricinfo, Parth Jindal said, “It was just a different philosophy of how he wanted the franchise to operate and how us – the owners – wanted the franchise to operate. That’s what caused it (Pant’s departure). There’s nothing to do with money.”
“Money’s never been an issue for Rishabh. And money’s never been an issue for us. I guess the three of us (Kiran Grandhi, Jindal and Pant) were on different wavelengths.”
“He took a call at the end of it. We tried everything, but he decided eventually that it was time to move on,” added Jindal.
What Made Rishabh Pant Part Away From Delhi Capitals?
“It means the way the franchise is to run, the decisions of the franchise, those kinds of things. There were certain expectations that he had and there were certain expectations we had. I can just say that we couldn’t align on these things,” he said.
Jindal also admitted that the franchise’s expectations regarding the leadership role did not align with Pant’s ideas. Pant had a different vision in mind, focused on his long-term goal of captaining India.
“We gave him some feedback regarding leadership. We told him ways in which he could improve on that, but we were quite clear that we know his ambitions, we know where he wants to go.
“He’s made it amply clear that his dream and desire is to captain India and that starts with captaining an IPL team,” he noted.
Jindal also said that getting back Rishabh Pant from the auction table was an impossible task and the management knew it very clearly.
“The minute we didn’t retain him, I knew he was gone. We did do the right-to-match for him at Rs 20.25 (crore), but again, the budget went extremely high. We were okay to stretch up to Rs 22-23 (crore),” he added.
