The news that his friend and seasoned wicketkeeper-batter Rishabh Pant will be joining the Delhi Capitals for the upcoming IPL season has captain Axar Patel ecstatic.
Rishabh Pant, the captain of the Lucknow Super Giants (LSG), has been transferred to DC in one of the biggest player swaps in recent IPL history, while Kuldeep Yadav, the spinner for the Capitals, will go to Lucknow.
After being moved to the Capitals at a revised value of Rs 15 crore, Pant’s IPL income will be significantly reduced. However, after joining the Lucknow-based franchise, Kuldeep will continue to pay his current cost of Rs 13.50 crore.
Patel welcomed Pant to the Delhi Capitals with posts on social media.
“When he was here before, he was my captain, and he was leading me. At that time, we didn’t have anything like ‘I am the captain, I will tell you this and that’. We used to work in mutual understanding. He knows that he is a senior player, and I know that I am a senior player. We had a mutual understanding of what he can do best in a particular situation and what he can’t,” Patel said in the video.
He further added, “As a friend and as a captain, I will tell him that he knows that he doesn’t have any extra pressure from me or from the franchise. This is his own house; he has played here for many years. Delhi is his home, so I don’t have to say much to him. I just know that he will get full freedom as a captain from my side.”
Concluding his message, Patel said, “Just enjoy yourself. Enjoy your character. Form is temporary, class is permanent. You are a player of that category. You have full freedom from our side. Just play your game and enjoy. This will be the message for him.”
In 2016, Pant began his IPL career with the Delhi Capitals, later known as the Delhi Daredevils. Before joining LSG in 2025 following a record bid of Rs 27 crore in the auction, he had played for DC in eight IPL seasons.
Over his two seasons with the team, he has only managed three fifty-plus scores in 28 innings, including one century and two half-centuries, making it difficult to justify his price tag. He scored 269 runs at an average of 24.45 and a strike rate of 133.16 in the 2025 Indian Premier League.
