LUCKNOW, May 22 -- This was a season that the Lucknow Super Giants wanted to have an impact in. They started with a bang when they bought Rishabh Pant at the mega auction last year for a mouth-watering Rs.27 crore. The money was crazy but so were the expectations. After finishing third in their first two seasons, the seventh-place finish last season hit them hard and they needed a pick-me-up. They would have hoped that Pant would be the man to inspire a comeback of sorts. But the skipper's partnership with LSG really didn't work out well. The left-handed batter known for his swashbuckling strokes never got going and the lack of runs meant that he was always under pressure. It didn't help that he would have seen how badly things had ended for their previous skipper, KL Rahul, last season. A massive overhaul of the LSG management, and reports of bickering between the support staff among other things also seem to have impacted Pant as well as LSG. The team kept struggling for bowlers in the beginning, but couldn't get it together even after their key bowlers returned to the side mid-season. In the all-important do-or-die match with Sunrisers Hyderabad to stay in the hunt for a berth in the playoffs, Pant could muster just seven runs off six balls. LSG exited from the race for the playoffs, and it led to team owner Sanjeev Goenka sharing a note on social media, which spoke much about Pant's contribution to the side. "It's been a challenging second half of the season, but there's much to take heart in. The spirit, the effort, and the moments of excellence give us a lot to build on. Two games remain. Let's play with pride and finish strong. #LSGvsSRH," Goenka wrote on X. Undoubtedly, LSG were in trouble at the start of the season after their entire frontline pace attack was laid low with injuries. But despite this, they started their campaign strongly, securing five wins in their first eight matches. Then, things started to get difficult. They went on a four-match losing streak after that, even with the return of three of those key pacers. It didn't get better on home turf as they lost to Punjab Kings by eight wickets before losing to Chennai Super Kings by five wickets and Delhi Capitals by eight wickets. And their loss to SRH on Monday wrapped up a wretched run. Everyone expected Pant to explain the reasons behind his poor batting form, but he attributed his side's poor performance to the 'gaps' created in their squad due to injuries sustained after the auction. He also said that while the team had initially 'decided not to dwell on' these absences, they progressively became 'difficult to fill' and ultimately proved costly for LSG. "Coming into the tournament, it could have definitely been one of our best seasons. But we had a lot of gaps, injuries, and as a team we decided to not talk about that but it became difficult to fill those gaps for us," Pant said in the post-match presentation. "The way we planned the auction, if we had had the same bowling. But this is cricket, sometimes things go your way and sometimes they don't. We take pride in the way we played and take the positives from the season rather than the negatives. "We have a strong batting line up, have enough firepower and that is the biggest positive for the season. Even the bowlers, a lot of times they bowled in good areas, but they were patchy," he added. He also explained the reasons for the crucial loss against SRH. "We knew we were 10 runs short because the wicket was playing well. "Like I said before, we are playing well in patches but were unable to keep the momentum going whenever it was on our side. The first half of the season we played well but in the second half it became tougher and tougher to catch up with the teams." The results in the remaining two matches of LSG, one against Gujarat Titans at Ahmedabad on May 22 and other against Royal Challengers Bengaluru on the home turf on May 27 will make not much of a difference, but a massive overhaul of the support staff looks imminent as team's insiders indicate that some serious discussions about it are already taking place....