Ganguly plans to return Rishabh Pant to middle order as Delhi Capitals head coach

On October 7, 2026, Sourav Ganguly, newly appointed head coach of Delhi Capitals, set out a plan to revive Rishabh Pant’s Indian Premier League career by moving him back into the middle order and giving him a defined role, remarks he made in a video posted by Delhi Capitals on their official YouTube channel.

Pant began his IPL career for Delhi as a middle-order batter but left the franchise after the 2024 season to pursue opening the innings; Lucknow Super Giants paid Rs 27 crore for him at the auction, making him the most expensive player at the time. After two seasons in Lucknow that failed to establish a settled role, the experiment ended and Pant was traded back to Delhi for a considerably lower value.

Ganguly said he envisages Pant occupying a familiar slot at No. 4 or No. 5 and highlighted the batter’s affinity for the home ground. "You know he enjoys batting at the Feroz Shah Kotla (Arun Jaitley Stadium) in Delhi and hopefully we'll see the best of Pant in the years to come for the Delhi shirt," Ganguly added.

The statistical case for returning Pant to the middle order was underlined in the club’s thinking: he has played 103 matches in the middle order, batting at No. 4 and 5, and scored 2,941 runs at a strike rate of 145. Delhi’s approach, as described by Ganguly, is to use Pant’s ability to alter an innings without tasking him with opening responsibility.

Ganguly framed his coaching method around understanding players rather than imposing fixed routines, noting his own administrative and coaching background. He is head of the Cricket Association of Bengal and has taken on his first major coaching role with Delhi after previously serving as the franchise’s director of cricket and as head coach of their Pretoria Capitals outfit. "It's not the same as a player. It's a bit different, you need to understand things, you need to be relaxed. You still need to find a way to get the best out of players and work with the players because players are different," Ganguly said. "It's not you batting or you bowling anymore. It's about somebody else batting or bowling or winning cricket matches. So it's important that you sync with them and understand what they want and how they can get better."

Pant’s career has been interrupted since he established himself as one of India’s most exciting young batters: a life-threatening car accident in December 2022 kept him out for more than a year and required a long rehabilitation. He returned to competitive cricket in 2024, regained places in India’s T20I and Test teams and assumed a leadership role with the national side.

Delhi’s squad and recent finish frame the context for Ganguly’s plan: the franchise were sixth last season and have reached the IPL final once, in 2020. Ganguly listed senior players as part of a strong squad and spoke of collective ambition: "It's a good team with KL Rahul, Axar Patel, Rishabh Pant, Mitchell Starc, Lungi Ngidi, David Miller, Tristan Stubbs, it's a pretty strong team and I hope we play to our potential and I hope everyone understands how good they are and goes and expresses themselves," he said. "Motivation is to take Delhi to the top."

After two difficult seasons in Lucknow, Pant has returned to Delhi and Ganguly said the club will simplify his role rather than ask him to reinvent himself. "We needed a middle-order batter and Pant fits it perfectly. He was with us and he played well for us. Next year, when he turns up again, I think he'll use the time and space and the matches to become a better player," Ganguly said in the video, signalling that Pant will be given a defined middle-order position and time to rebuild in Delhi's set-up.