Former India player Aakash Chopra is not sure whether Rishabh Pant’s poor form in IPL 2025 is because of the pressure of the huge amount he was bought for by the Lucknow Super Giants (LSG) at the IPL mega auction. He also opined that captaincy pressure could also be a reason behind his poor show as well. However, LSG acquired Pant for a whopping ₹27 crore at the IPL 2025 auction last November and appointed him as their skipper as well.

In a video shared on his YouTube channel ‘Aakash Chopra’, he said, “I don’t know. I have never seen so much money together in my life. So how would I know what pressure is? However, could it be pressure? It could be the pressure of money, or it could be the pressure of captaincy,” he responded. “I was slightly surprised when he didn’t go out to bat in the last match. Go to bat, at least, because how would runs be scored if you don’t go? However, he didn’t go to bat at all. He will have to score runs now.”

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However, Aakash Chopra also stated that a big score from Rishabh Pant was around the corner.

“What will the road ahead be from here? Greg Chappell sahab told a very good thing to me once. It applies to both him (Pant) and Rohit Sharma. If you are going through a bad patch, check your career stats, and you would find you would have scored a fifty in every fifth or sixth inning. So whenever you are getting out, you are getting closer to succeeding and not failing,” he said.

“Four or five innings have gone bad now. It means that if you stick to your basics, keep concentrating, and accept you are in bad form, as you play slightly cautiously then, a good knock will come. I really hope he gets back to scoring runs in this game because the team, I think, is punching above its weight because the top three are playing very well, but the bowling is slightly weak,” Aakash Chopra concluded.