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After finishing seventh, with six wickets and eight defeats last year, they are headed for a bottom-of-the-table finish in IPL 2026. Pant as a batter has also looked under pressure. In IPL 2025, he only scored 269 runs in 14 games, including a hundred and a fifty, and this season has been no different as Pant has failed to live up to the expectations, scoring a mere 204 runs in nine games. On Tuesday, as LSG lost to the Mumbai Indians (MI) and their hopes for playoff qualification nosedived, Manoj Tiwary and Rohan Gavaskar urged LSG to remove Pant as captain and allow him to bat freely. "Sanjiv Goenka had once said in an interview that he wants Pant to create a legacy, play for LSG for the next 10-15 years and win trophies. But sometimes you've got to put certain players out of the firing line. After this season, LSG must decide whether they want to keep him as captain. He should be allowed to focus only on his batting, because we all know his capabilities and talent. "When the team performs badly, that pressure also falls on the skipper. So release him from that and allow him to play freely," Rohan Gavaskar said on Cricbuzz Manoj Tiwary echoed similar sentiments and said that LSG should remove Pant as captain and play him purely as a batter. "I feel that, under the pressure of captaincy, we are losing Pant the batter - someone who has performed in international cricket and the IPL previously. He is not getting those runs this season. So release him from the captaincy burden and let him play purely as a batter. That would be best for LSG," he added. What Are LSG's Options? A sudden change in leadership looks unlikely, irrespective of the results, but LSG can consider naming a new captain if things don't improve in IPL 2026. LSG have Aiden Markram, who also leads the South Africa T20I team and also guided Sunrisers Eastern Cape to back-to-back titles in the SA20 in 2023 and 2024 seasons. Mitchell Marsh is also part of the squad, and he has proven his credentials as captain for Australia.