Bought for a whopping fee of INR 27 crore in the Indian Premier League (IPL) mega auction, Rishabh Pant has unarguably been the biggest flop of the season so far. With an average of just over 12, Pant has tried his hand at different roles in the batting order but failed to deliver in any. As the Lucknow Super Giants’ top three incurred a rare failure against Punjab Kings on Sunday, the spotlight fell on Pant to resurrect the team’s chase of 237 runs. But the manner of his dismissal once again reflected the wayward campaign he has had so far.

Former Chennai Super Kings and Mumbai Indians batter Ambati Rayudu didn’t mince his words as he suggested Pant drop his ‘stubbornness’ and look to learn from the mistakes he has made.

“I think, at this point in time, I’m feeling very sorry for him because he’s not been changing his batting order or his approach,” Rayudu said on ESPNcricinfo’s Time Out. “I think he’s being pretty stubborn about how he wants to go about things. It’s not working in his favour at the moment. It happens in this sport, to be very honest, and he is going through a very, very bad patch. It can happen to anybody. I just hope that he takes this learning and improves on it and doesn’t become even more stubborn, but just accepts the fact that he is struggling and starts doing things a little differently, and try and get better every day. That’s all you can do.”

From No. 3 to No. 7, Pant has played all across the middle-order for LSG but failed to deliver in any. For Rayudu, opening remains his best position in white-ball formats. In fact, the former India batter feels Pant doesn’t even have the required skills for a middle-order batter.

“I think more than anything, it’s just the clarity of what he wants to do because Pant ideally for me is an opener in white-ball cricket, because in the middle order, he has not been great. I know he loves playing in the middle, but he doesn’t have the batsmanship that is required or the skill set. Maybe he has the skillset, but not the mindset to execute that.”

“That shows that mentally he is not very relaxed and very calm. At the moment, the word that I would use is he lacks confidence,” he concluded.