Ravi Bishnoi Breaks Silence After Pant’s Costly CSK Blunder

The 43-year-old MS Dhoni brought in huge nostalgia with his match-winning finish in the Lucknow Super Giants vs Chennai Super Kings game in the Indian Premier League (IPL) 2025 on Monday. Dhoni’s 11-ball 26 changed the course of CSK’s game after CSK appeared to have suffered another batting unit collapse. With Chennai requiring 44 runs to win in the last 4 overs, it was up to Dhoni and Shivam Dube to see the team through. The task was on LSG captain Rishabh Pant to be decisive with his bowling selection. That is where Pant, who is a relatively inexperienced captain, went wrong.

Pant’s Captaincy Decisions Under Scrutiny

Pant chose to play with the pace-bowling combination of Avesh Khan and Shardul Thakur in the last 4 overs even though leg-spinner Ravi Bishnoi had been the most successful player from the team in the match with the ball. In his three overs, Bishnoi had conceded only 18 runs while taking two wickets. However, he did not get the opportunity to bowl his quota of 4 overs.

Ravi Bishnoi Reacts After the Match

Addressing the media at the post-match presser, Ravi Bishnoi stated that even though he didn’t speak with Pant regarding providing him a chance to bowl during the death overs, he did approach the field in the middle, hoping his efforts would be noticed by the LSG skipper and the ball be given to him. But, that did not materialize.

Ravi Bishnoi Respects Pant’s Decisions

“I didn’t really talk [to Pant] about it, but I went to the wicket a couple of times and I think he had plans in place he wanted to execute,” Bishnoi told media after the game.

“In such situations the captain is better placed and he keeps wicket too, so he understands things better. According to me, he took the decision he thought was better,” he added.

Debate Over Bowling Choices and the Impact of Dhoni

Bishnoi also brought the importance of Lucknow using 4th spinner on the pitch to the fore after the group of Bishnoi, Digvesh Rathi and Aiden Markram had numbers of 11-0-66-4. Medium pacer Shardul Thakur was LSG’s biggest disappointment, conceding 56 runs.

“It was quite a close game anyway and all our bowlers bowled well. So in my opinion, it didn’t really matter that much whether there could have been an extra spinner. In a way, we already had three spinners – Markram bowled his full quota of four overs, Rathi bowled, I bowled so after having three spinners, a fourth spinner, I don’t think you could have played one more on that pitch.

“And as far as Mahi bhai (MS Dhoni) is concerned, as everybody knows when the ball is in his radar and it’s his day, that’s it,” Bishnoi added.