Lucknow Super Giants (LSG)’s poor performance in the Indian Premier League (IPL) 2026 continues. The team has lost its fourth consecutive match. LSG could not even chase the target of 160 runs against Rajasthan Royals on Wednesday (April 22) night and suffered its third consecutive defeat at home. LSG had bundled out half of RR’s team for 77 runs. Despite this, RR managed to reach a respectable score.

Chasing a relatively small target, LSG lost Ayush Badoni (0) as run out in the very first over. After this, captaincy innings was expected from Rishabh Pant but he walked out in the second over by playing an irresponsible shot off the ball of Nandre Berger. Pant could not even open his account. After some time, Aiden Markram (0) was also out and LSG’s defeat was certain in just 3 overs.

Pooran’s slow batting again

After 3 wickets fell for 11 runs, Mitchell Marsh along with Nicholas Pooran took LSG beyond 50. Puran was batting very slowly but when it came time to increase the run rate, he became the victim of Ravindra Jadeja. Puran scored only 22 runs in 25 balls. Marsh did score 55 runs but for this he took 41 balls, due to which LSG’s innings could never gain momentum. In the end, his entire team was all out for 119 in 18 overs and had to face a crushing defeat by 40 runs in a low-scoring match.

Price tag pressure on Puran-Pant?

Pant is the most expensive player in IPL history. He was bought by LSG in the last mega auction for Rs 28 crore. Despite poor performance in IPL 2025, the franchise retained him. Similarly, Puran is also going through a bad phase in recent times. Still, he was retained by LSG for Rs 21 crore. LSG spent Rs 48 crore on these two players but both these players have proved to be huge flops. This season, Pant has scored 147 runs in 7 innings at a strike rate of 132.43. Whereas Puran has been able to add only 73 runs. During this period his strike rate is only 82.02.

Half of LSG’s season has ended and their path to the playoffs is becoming difficult. The team has been able to win only 2 out of 7 matches. To reach the playoffs, he will have to win at least 6 out of the remaining 7 matches. For this, the management will have to take a tough decision on Puran, who is not able to score runs even at a strike rate of 100.