Delhi Capitals co-owner Parth Jindal revealed that the franchise did everything possible to retain Rishabh Pant ahead of the IPL mega auction but the star wicketkeeper batter was on “different wavelengths” on how to operate the team, leading to his departure. The Capitals did not retain Pant and the left-hander was sold to Lucknow Super Giants in the recent mega auction for Rs 27 crore, becoming the most expensive player in the history of the IPL.
“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,” Jindal told ‘ESPNCricinfo’.
“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.
So, what were those points of differences? “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.
Jindal also accepted that the expectations of the franchise on leadership role did not match with the idea, which was based on 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 management realised that buying back Pant from the auction was 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.
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