Delhi Capitals co-owner Parth Jindal, on Tuesday, ended his silence, revealing why Rishabh Pant left the franchise. Despite Pant's decision, Delhi did place look to exercise their Right-To-Match card at the IPL 2025 auction in Jeddah on Sunday, but could not match the price of INR 27 crore asked by Lucknow Super Giants.

Speaking to RevSportz, Jindal revealed that after the previous IPL season, the management, gave Pant an “honest feedback" on his performance and on not getting what was expected of the team. However, Pant did not take the feedback well and made an “emotional call” to leave Delhi Capitals.

“Not retaining Pant was not about ownership. It was a very collective decision. We had a lot of discussions with Rishabh. There were things that were expected of Rishabh, which we did not get in the last or in the previous seasons. We gave him an honest feedback. But the feedback was not taken as the way we expected it to be taken. He then took an emotional call,” he said.

Jindal revealed that he and Kiran Kumar Grandhi, fellow co-owner of the franchise, did try to convince Pant to continue his journey with the franchise, but the India batter had already made up his mind.

The managing director of JSW Cement revealed that he told Pant they won't go after him in the auction, but admitted that Delhi Capitals became emotional and raised the paddle to exercise their RTM card, but failed to re-sign him.

“He has also grown in this franchise, but what transpired is not what I'm going to get into. It was a very protracted long discussion and after that Pant decided not to stay. Me and Kiran tried made all efforts to keep him, but he decided to go in a different direction. I told Pant that we won't go after him in the auction, but my heart took over and we tried picking him up. But the price was too high,” he said.

Pant joins LSG

Pant was roped in by Lucknow Super Giants for INR 27 crore, making him the most expensive player at an IPL auction. Earlier that same evening in Jeddah, India batter Shreyas Iyer had broken Mitchell Starc record price of INR 24.75 crore when Punjab Kings acquired him for INR 26.75 crore.

LSG bought a total of 19 players at the mega auction, splurging 68.90 crore.

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