The Delhi Capitals co-owner Parth Jindal has revealed that the franchise did everything they could do to retain Rishabh Pant but the wk-batter had different ideas on how to operate the team which is different from the franchise, which resulted in his departure.
Delhi Capitals did not retain Rishabh Pant and he was sold to Lucknow Super Giants in the IPL 2025 auction for INR 27 crore becoming the most expensive player in IPL history.
“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,” told Parth Jindal.
“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.
While asked those points were differences, he replied,
“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.
Jinal also accpeted that the expectations of the franchise on leadership role did not match with the idea, which was a long term ambition of captaining India, Pant had in his mind.
“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 said the team manangement realised the buying back Pant during the auction is an impossible task.
“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.
With the IPL dates being announced, the eyes will be on the releasee of the schedule for the 18th edition of the tournament.
