Rishabh Pant plans short break before England series for mental rest

His IPL campaign over, India's swashbuckling wicketkeeper-batter Rishabh Pant on Tuesday said he would want to "switch off" for a few days before leaving for the Test tour of England in a "good frame of mind."  Pant slammed a magnificent century -- 118 off 61 balls -- to power Lucknow Super Giants to 227 for three against Royal Challengers Bengaluru in the final league fixture of IPL 2025.

But RCB, riding on Jitesh Sharma's 33-ball 85 and Mayank Agarwal's 23-ball 41, and the duo's unbroken 107-run partnership for the fifth wicket, pulled off a memorable win to seal their place in Qualifier 1.

"Just want to switch off for a few days, not think about cricket and then the England series is coming up and just preparing for that in a good frame of mind," Pant said at the presentation ceremony. 

The LSG skipper rued the absence of key bowlers for a good part of the season owing to injury.

"Eventually you got to play 40 overs of good cricket. 20 overs will definitely not save you in a T20 game and that's been our story. There were a lot of injury concerns before the tournament, that's something that hurt us going through the season," Pant said at the presentation ceremony.

Left-arm seamer Mohsin Khan missed the entire season for LSG, while express pace bowler Mayank Yadav spent most of the tournament on the sidelines. Mayank briefly returned but looked undercooked and was ruled out again with another back injury.

After an underwhelming season, Pant finally got going as he smashed 11 fours and eight sixes during his scintillating knock.

"I was feeling well with each and every match but sometimes it just doesn't come off. Today I made sure that if I am starting well I should make a big one. Like all the experienced players do, learning from the best always.

"Whenever you get a start, try to make it big as possible. I was trying to play the field, how they were going to bowl, that was something I kept in mind. Playing through the line and looking for the areas and the gaps and kept it very simple.

"Played every ball with the same intensity and kept on playing with the same intensity throughout the innings," Pant said.

I will not be able to express my thoughts: Jitesh  Having played an incredible knock, Jitesh said the idea was to take the game deep after Virat Kohli's (54 off 30 balls) departure with more than 100 runs behind their target.

"I will not be able to express my thoughts! I can't believe I played that knock. When Virat bhai was out, I was just thinking of taking it deep," Player of the Match Jitesh said.

"As my mentor and guru Dinesh (Karthik) anna says, just take it deep. I was getting cramps because all the load was on me! I have Virat bhai, Krunal bhai and Bhuvi bhai with me. I feel excited that I'm playing with them.

"We want to enjoy the moment. But we'll try to recover well. We'll look to carry the momentum into the next match," Jitesh added.