Former RCB captain Faf du Plessis reckons that Rishabh Pant is the player who will under extra pressure to perform in IPL 2026. The LSG captain is the highest-paid star in the history of the league, having been bought for a whooping Rs 27 crore, but simply failed to justify his price tag. Ahead of the start of the new edition of the tournament, du Plessis, along with former CSK star L Balaji explained how Pant must live up to the expectations and do the heavy lifting for LSG in IPL 2026.

‘Pant is under most pressure’

Speaking on JioHotstar’s Game Plan – Know Your Team – du Plessis said that there will be a lot of expectations on Pant and LSG, especially since the batter struggled in IPL 2025. He said that it was the responsibility of the captain to score runs in the first place to rescue the team. Apart from a hundred in LSG’s final game, Rishabh hardly managed to score runs in the tournament, and finished with 269 runs from 14 games, averaging just 24.45.

“For me, Rishabh Pant is probably the player in the IPL, who is under the most pressure this season. Some guys flourish under the price tag pressure, while some don’t. I think last season was a really tough one for him. The team struggled, and he also struggled with runs in the way that he batted,” Du Plessis stated.

Is Pant LSG’s most reliable batter?

Former CSK star Balaji pointed out that while LSG’s top-order was stacked with overseas stars like Marsh, Makram and Pooran, it was the leadership group, the captaincy and bowling which had cost the team in the previous season. He reckoned that Pant would have to do some heavy-lifting, something which the southpaw had not done in IPL 2025.

“You have the likes of Badoni, Abdul Samad, and Shahbaz Ahmed, all of whom can chip in. But the top order and Rishabh Pant will have to do the heavy lifting,” L Balaji said,