Lucknow Super Giants broke the bank in the Indian Premier League mega auctions for Rishabh Pant, forking out a eyewatering amount of Rs 27 crore to secure the services of their current captain.

DC owner Parth Jindal had explained his reasoning for letting Pant walk away before the retention deadline.

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“It was just a different philosophy of how he wanted the franchise to operate and how us – the owners – wanted the franchise to operate. That’s what caused it (Pant’s departure). There’s nothing to do with money,” Jindal had explained to ESPNCricinfo last year. “Money’s never been an issue for Rishabh. And money’s never been an issue for us. I guess the three of us (Kiran Grandhi, Jindal and Pant) were on different wavelengths. He took a call at the end of it. We tried everything, but he decided eventually that it was time to move on.”

Jindal had also spoken about Pant had ambitions to captain the Indian cricket team and the path to that lofty ambition was through successfully leading an IPL outfit.

“It means the way the franchise is to run, the decisions of the franchise, those kinds of things. There were certain expectations that he had and there were certain expectations we had. I can just say that we couldn’t align on these things. We gave him some feedback regarding leadership. We told him ways in which he could improve on that, but we were quite clear that we know his ambitions, we know where he wants to go. He’s made it amply clear that his dream and desire is to captain India and that starts with captaining an IPL team,” he noted.