Rishabh Pant accused of 'faking injury' in T20 World Cup-like 'masterplan' to beat KKR; fans say 'We’ve seen it before'

Lucknow Super Giants captain Rishabh Pant sparked a sense of deja vu during Tuesday's IPL 2025 match against Kolkata Knight Riders. Fans on social media were quick to spot the "master plan" that helped his team script a second consecutive win this season.

Nicholas Pooran's carnage at the Eden Gardens helped Lucknow set a daunting target of 239 runs as the West Indies batter smashed an unbeaten 87 off 36. But the target just seemed enough for Kolkata, who found themselves cruising through at their home ground, riding on a fiery 73-run stand for the third wicket between Ajinkya Rahane and Venkatesh Iyer.

After 12 overs, Kolkata stood at 149 for two, leaving them with 90 to score from the remaining 48 balls. Lucknow were running out of ideas, with Rahane and Iyer showing no mercy to any bowler. But the breakthrough came at the end of the 13th over, with Shardul Thakur dismissing Rahane in an over where he bowled 11 deliveries, owing to five consecutive wides. KKR eventually lost half their sides at strategic time-out, with LSG picking a wicket in each of the three overs that followed, leaving the asking rate to surge over 13 once again for the hosts.

Taking to social media, fans speculated the break in momentum from KKR was down to Pant's act at the start of the 13th over. He was suddenly experiencing some back pain, leaving the LSG dugout nervous as the physio was called. Pant received treatment on the field, causing some delay in the game, before he decided to continue playing.

Fans reckoned Pant "faked" the injury only to break KKR's momentum. He had previously pulled off this tactic during the T20 World Cup final last June, which was followed by Heinrich Klaasen's game-changing dismissal.

Pant later admitted to using the delaying tactic during the World Cup final in Barbados. Speaking to Star Sports months after the win, he said: "I actually thinking what to do because the momentum had suddenly shifted (in South Africa's favour), they had scored plenty of runs in 2-3 overs, so I was thinking when will that moment come when we will the World Cup final."

"I was asking the physio to take time. When Rohit bhai asked if my knee is fine I said, 'Bhaiya, mast acting kar raha tha' (I was acting all this while). Sometimes you have to do these types of things in matches. I'm not saying it works every time, but it does work sometimes and if it works at that kind of a moment, then nothing like it," he added.

Rishabh Pant addressed injury concern

Despite how social media reacted to the incident, Pant maintained that he had injured his back during wicketkeeping, before assuring that he was fine.

"The back is fine now," he said in the post-match presentation.

Lucknow will play their next two matches at home - against Gujarat Titans on Saturday and Chennai Super Kings on Monday.