Rishabh Pant Trains Under Yuvraj Singh to Revive White-Ball Career for IPL 2026

Pant, who captains Lucknow Super Giants (LSG) and is the most expensive IPL player via a Rs 27 crore deal, has not played competitive cricket since suffering a side strain while batting on the eve of India's ODI series against New Zealand in Vadodara in January.

A video of the training session that has gained huge traction on social media showed Pant facing deliveries while Yuvraj watched everything closely from the umpire's position and gave him some advice. IANS understands that the sessions Pant had under Yuvraj focused on both skills and temperament for succeeding in modern-day white-ball cricket.

"Basically, Rishabh has been practicing very, very hard on his game and for improving his fitness too. One would have noticed that he has become leaner also, if the videos are to go by. He was very keen to work more on his white-ball game, and not just the T20 side of things.

"So he reached out to Yuvraj and said he wanted to train under him for three-four days. Subsequently, they trained at the CCI ground in Mumbai, before he departed for Chennai to attend LSG's ongoing pre-season camp and will be followed by another camp in Lucknow," said a source familiar with the matter to IANS on Thursday.

It is also understood that the short camp was not necessarily for upping Pant's T20 game only, as the wicketkeeper-batter is targeting a larger picture - of excelling for a longer period in limited-overs cricket.

Pant, a member of 2024 Men's T20 World Cup and 2025 Champions Trophy winning sides, endured a poor run in IPL 2025, scoring 269 runs in 14 matches at a strike rate of 133.16, his lowest returns since debuting in the competition in 2016. Despite hitting an unbeaten 118 in LSG's final league game against Royal Challengers Bengaluru, it didn't help the side's cause as they finished seventh in the points table.

Yuvraj, India's 2007 T20 World Cup and 2011 ODI World Cup triumphs hero, has been mentoring several players in recent years, including Test and ODI skipper Shubman Gill, Abhishek Sharma, Prabhsimran Singh. He even had a short mentoring stint with wicketkeeper-batter Sanju Samson, who went on to become Player of the Tournament in India's recent T20 World Cup triumph on home soil.

Pant remains India's second-choice wicketkeeper in ODIs behind KL Rahul, but was not part of the T20 World Cup-winning squad. With fellow keepers Samson and Ishan Kishan being in red-hot form in T20s, Pant will be keen to make big runs and lead LSG's turnaround in IPL 2026.

- IANS