Rishabh Pant or Nicholas Pooran - who should be LSG's captain for IPL 2025?

The Lucknow Super Giants (LSG) have done well to remain tight-lipped (just about) regarding their captaincy choice for IPL 2025. Despite giving multiple interviews since the auction, franchise owner Sanjeev Goenka has simply maintained that an announcement will come "soon".

In his most recent interview, Goenka even mentioned that for now, he sees his team as having four leaders -- IPL-record signing Rishabh Pant (acquired for ₹27 crore), South Africa's Aiden Markram (₹2 crore), Australian Mitchell Marsh (₹3.4 crore) and West Indies' Nicholas Pooran (retained for ₹21 crore).

"We have four leaders in our team - Rishabh, Pooran, Markram and Mitch Marsh," Goenka told Aakash Chopra on his YouTube channel. "So it becomes a very strong leadership pool of intellect and thought, and strategy. They are all people who can go with the mindset to win. Rishabh has the hunger and passion to win. So a good team has been built. We are happy. Overall, the balance is also okay and no team is 10 on 10."

Although Markram and Marsh captain their respective national teams in T20Is, with some success too, they would likely be third and fourth in the pecking order due to their limited CV in the IPL. The decision is likely to be between the two biggest signings -- Pant and Pooran. Below, we analyze each leader's pros and cons:

# Rishabh Pant

Goenka, while speaking about the things that impressed him about Pant in the same interview, mentioned some equally interesting traits.

"I saw a video of Rishabh where he did dramebaazi (acting) on the field," he said. "He slowed the momentum. I liked that attitude a lot, that you have that extra thought to change the momentum when everything was going against us by removing the pads. From that time, I had in my mind that if only Rishabh had been in my team."

"That one thing of his appealed to me a lot. Along with that, he came back from a near-fatal injury, and he has come back to a form which is better than his original form. So that resilience and ability to fight and rise again matter a lot. Rishabh is 27. So I hope he will be with LSG for the next 10-12 years."

Both of those aspects are spot-on. Pant has a sharp cricketing brain, which he sometimes uses in ways that surprise the opposition and give his team the advantage. At LSG, he'd be a live-wire behind the stumps, and his on-field captaincy calls would be eye-catching, if not always effective.

And Pant also definitely resilient. LSG fans would love him for standing up in matches where the top order fails, which is what he did often for the Delhi Capitals and has done many a time for India.

If given a great team, a settled environment and a smart coach, as he got in IPL 2021 when the Capitals finished top of the table under his captaincy, Pant might be able to help LSG to get into the top two. Those combinations might need time to work out, but the Super Giants should be able to give him that at the start of this new IPL cycle.

There are a couple of concerns, though. Pant hasn't captained in and won any big games -- even his "acting" incident happened as a player in the 2024 Men's T20 World Cup final -- so his pressure-handling as a captain remains untested.

Secondly, his batting in T20s hasn't been at its best for a few years now. His good numbers veil his good luck because bowlers have been able to work out his off-side weaknesses of late. So, if and how he tackles that in Lucknow would be key to LSG's fortunes, especially if they give him the leadership onus.

# Nicholas Pooran

Pooran has a tough job on his hands competing with Pant for the captaincy of an IPL team. The latter is one of the faces of Indian cricket and brings huge brand value with him, which will make giving him captaincy more profitable for LSG.

But that doesn't mean Pooran doesn't have good credentials. Apart from clinching multiple titles as a player in leagues around the world, he has won the Major League Cricket and the Abu Dhabi T10 as the captain.

“He has been moulded as a future West Indies captain when he was appointed vice-captain of the team," former West Indies manager Omar Khan told Newsday in 2022. "He strongly led Guyana Amazon Warriors in the CPL last year and was very instrumental in the performances of the team. Nicholas is a natural leader and has the passion and power to do well.”

It's difficult to define whether he's a good captain or not, especially because his West Indies record was never good. However, Pooran is more experienced than Pant and has often managed his primary skill, batting, quite well with captaincy.

He has also been in better T20 form. In 2024, in fact, he has been the best T20 batter in the world, scoring the highest runs (2310) at an average of 42.77 and a strike rate of 158.54. He has already scored a century and 15 fifties this year.

If Goenka needs someone chatty and street-smart, Pooran has been doing that for the West Indies for years. If he needs someone as resilient as Pant, Pooran suffered a near-fatal car accident in 2019. He initially couldn't even feel his feet, and underwent two surgeries and months of rehabilitation to be able to walk. To go from there to one of the best players in the world is as remarkable as Pant's story.

Also, Pooran won't need to build any new relationships at LSG for he was already standing in for KL Rahul in a few games last season. He has been at the franchise for a long time, and head coach Justin Langer would've had enough time to learn about his approach, tactics, and so on - at least much more than with Pant.

The cons of appointing an overseas captain are obvious -- there are only limited spots and you don't want your best foreign talent to feel any extra pressure. However, among that lot, Pooran is as good as they come.

If Goenka can look outside of the brand value and overseas captain constraints, Pooran might just be the better choice. The West Indian 'keeper-batter taking the leadership could also free up Pant's batting for good measure.