0, 15, 2, 2, DNB*, 21, 63, 3, 0, 4, 18. Above is the series of scores Lucknow Super Giants captain and middle-order batter Rishabh Pant has mustered in 11 games of IPL 2025 so far. He has managed 128 runs with nearly half of them scored in one innings against Chennai Supe Kings last month. For someone who has been the costliest signing in the history of IPL auctions, the numbers with the bat don’t make for a pretty reading. Additionally, LSG are now struggling at the seventh spot in the points table with the season entering its business end. It was just last season that Pant, in his first competitive tournament since recovering from horrific injuries suffered in a car accident, scored 446 runs from 13 innings for Delhi Capitals. He averaged 40.55 and scored at a strike-rate of 155.40. However, his runs this season have come at a poor average of 12.80 and a sorry strike-rate of 99.22. So what’s going wrong? Former India cricketer Ambati Rayudu though feels sorry for Pant but thinks the wicketkeeper-batter is being stubborn at sticking by not trying something different despite multiple failures. “I think, at this point in time, I’m feeling very sorry for him because he’s not been changing his batting order or his approach. I think he’s being pretty stubborn about how he wants to go about things. It’s not working in his favour at the moment. It happens in this sport, to be very honest, and he is going through a very, very bad patch. It can happen to anybody,” Rayudu said on ESPNcricinfo. “I just hope that he takes this learning and improves on it and doesn’t become even more stubborn but just accept the fact that he is struggling and start doing things a little differently (and) try and get better every day,” he added. Rayudu reckons Pant is an opener in white-ball cricket and his skillsets aren’t suitable to excel in the middle order. “I think more than anything it’s just the clarity of what he wants to do because Pant ideally for me is an opener in white-ball cricket, because in the middle order he has not been great. I know he loves playing in the middle, but he doesn’t have the batsmanship that is required or the skill set. Maybe he has the skillset, but not the mindset to execute that,” Rayudu said. *Did Not Bat