Delhi Capitals (DC) head coach Ricky Ponting showed his faith in DC’s captain Rishabh Pant that he will play the entire season of IPL 2024 from the start.
Pant missed the IPL 2023 due to his accident on December 30, 2022. After his accident he missed the ODI World Cup, Asia Cup, WTC final and many more series.
Ponting after getting select as the coach for Washington Freedom, said about Rishabh,
“Rishabh is very confident that he’s going to be right to play. In what capacity we’re not quite sure yet. You would have seen all the social-media stuff, he’s up and about and running well. But in saying that we’re only six weeks away from the first game as well. So we’re not sure if we’ll get wicketkeeping out of him this year.
But I’ll guarantee if I asked him now he’ll say, ‘I’m playing every game, I’m keeping every game and I’m batting at No.4. That’s just what he’s like, but we’ll keep our fingers crossed. He’s such a dynamic player. He’s obviously our captain. We missed him incredibly last year. If you understand the journey he’s been on the last 12-13 months, it was a horrific incident. One that I know he feels very lucky to have even survived, let alone have the chance to play cricket again.
We’ll just keep our fingers crossed and hope that he can be out there and play. Even if it’s not all the games, if we can manage him through 10 of the 14 games or whatever that might be then whatever games you can get out of him will be a bonus.”
In last year’s IPL Delhi finished 9th with 5 wins and 9 losses in their 14 matches. David Warner took the leadership role in Pant’s absence. Delhi’s head coach also said that if Rishabh is not fit to take the charge then Warner will again continue as the leader of the team.
About changes in his batting lineup and current squad he said,
“With Harry Brook coming into the set-up as well, so Warner, Mitchell Marsh, Harry Brook, we’ve got some really good overseas batters. Marsh and Warner will bat up the top somewhere and Harry Brook has been finishing off with England, so he’ll probably play a finishing role for us there.
We can get Anrich Nortje and Jhye Richardson fit, and with the two spin options we’ve got with Axar Patel and Kuldeep Yadav we’ve got a really good squad that to be fair has probably underperformed the last couple of years, so we’ve got some work to do.”