Delhi Capitals captain Rishabh Pant blamed Ishant Sharma’s injury for not being able to defend the 174 on his comeback to the cricket field after 15 months in an IPL 2024 match against the Punjab Kings at the new stadium in Mullanpur, Punjab which also made its IPL debut on Saturday.
The 37-year-old Ishant Sharma who dismissed PBKS captain Shikhar Dhawan in the fourth of the chase and also inflicted Jonny Bairstow’s run out, suffered an injury in the sixth over. He hobbled off the field and didn’t return. This left DC a bowler short who did not have the luxury of getting a bowler as their Impact Player as the side’s batting first generally do because of the batting collapse they suffered earlier in the day.
“Ishant’s injury was clearly evident because we were anyway one player short because we lagged with the batting a bit,” Pant said in the post-match interaction after PBKS chased down the target with four wickets in hand in the last over.
Ishant’s injury meant, Pant had to use the full quota of Mitchell Marsh, which cost them 52 runs and also bowl Sumit Kumar for a couple of overs. DC’s original plan was to bring in Mukesh Kumar as an Impact player to give them extra cushion while defending but they had to change the plan midway through the first innings. Abishek Porel was brought as an extra batter after DC were reduced to 138 for 7 in 17.1 overs.
The move to send Porel in as an Impact Player did wonders for DC as the young left-hander, who was brought into the DC squad last year as injured Pant’s replacement, smashed 32 off just 10 balls to push the DC total to 174.
“Abishek came in and chipped in with a few runs which were crucial. It was an amazing innings, congrats to him. I think it’s just his third or fourth game but the kind of impact he made was huge. Really looking forward [to seeing him] this season,” Pant said.
Curran blazed away to a 47-ball 63 and got excellent support from compatriot Liam Livingstone (38 not out off 21 balls), as Punjab completed a chase of 175 with four balls to spare.
Pant scored 18 off 13 balls on his return to cricket. “Personally I was pretty nervous but you have to go through this when you enter the field. This isn’t the first time being nervous, but happy about that [return overall],” he said.
Pant said it was a par score and things could have been different had DC not lost Ishant due to an injury.
“I think we had a par score but because we were one bowler short, because of an injury, can’t do much about it. The wicket played as we expected to play, can’t make excuses. We will learn from it but having one bowler short is never good. End of the day, well played to them [Kings] I guess.”
