Rishabh Pant leads from behind the stumps in Delhi Capitals’ massive win vs GT in Ahmedabad

Synopsis: Pant has an evening to remember as captain, wicket-keeper and batsman as Delhi Capitals make a mockery of Gujarat Titans, dismissing them for 89 before overhauling the target with 67 balls to spare.

Lively Pant

It has been only a handful of games since Rishabh Pant made a comeback after a horrific car crash, and the biggest compliment one can make is that one doesn’t need to make any such allowances for his performance.

Wednesday’s game in Ahmedabad was one where everything he touched turned to gold. Winning the toss can be put down to luck, but Pant’s performance behind the stumps was exemplary. He had four dismissals – two catches and two stumpings – and three of them vouched for his impressive reflexes and the regained strength in his legs.

For the David Miller catch off Ishant Sharma, Pant had to change direction to catch an inside edge inches above the ground. Wicketkeepers’ first instinct is to expect a catch off the outside edge. The inside edge would have prompted a change of direction, but the ball then ricocheted off the batsman’s thigh pad to go to the off-side, necessitating another improvisation. It needed good strength from Pant’s legs, after whatever he had gone through due to the accident, to jump in a different direction and send the South African dangerman back.

The two stumpings came via the unlikeliest of sources – Tristan Stubbs – with one on the offside and the other down the legside. The South African got hit for two boundaries in his solitary over but got one to go straight from around the stumps and beat Abhinav Manohar, who had a tortured stay in the middle, on the outside edge. The back foot had strayed out of the crease, and in the TV umpire’s opinion, had not returned behind the line.

A wicket-keeper captain with quick stumpings. Sounds familiar? ⚡pic.twitter.com/zuRaJNgYjq

— Delhi Capitals (@DelhiCapitals) April 17, 2024

Impact Player Shahrukh Khan came and went without making a star impact. An attempted swipe to a wide down the legside made contact with thin air, making the batsman overbalance and move out of the crease. Luck was on Pant’s side as even though the ball slipped out of his hands, it went on to hit the stumps with the batsman still out.
But his athleticism was evident even otherwise as well, as he jumped this way and that, showing his expert govework off both pace bowlers and spinners.

And he was there at the end to ensure that Delhi Capitals got the job done in quick time even though they lost four wickets in the chase in David Warner’s absence.

Titans sleepwalking

The Gujarat Titans batting performance was so devoid of energy and initiative that one wondered if there was something more in the pitch than met the eye. The Delhi Capitals new-ball pairing of Khaleel Ahmed and Ishant Sharma had been hot and cold in the league, but seemed to have got out on the right side of bed for this match. Titans’ top order is disproportionately reliant on skipper Shubman Gill and once he was gone in the second over – spooning a catch off an Ishant full ball to Prithvi Shaw at extra cover, the home side went into a shell.

The Powerplay saw only three bowlers with only 30 scored. Mukesh had the returning Wriddhiman Saha bowled off the inside edge, going for an ungainly hoick, and Sai Sudharsan was found short by a brilliant piece of fielding by Sumit Kumar, who rushed to the ball and threw at the base of the stumps at the non-striker’s end as the batsmen attempted a tight single. Miller’s early dismissal left the hosts 30/4 after the Powerplay.

It seemed that Manohar took the rebuilding brief a bit too seriously and was scoreless for the first eight deliveries he faced, playing out a Khaleel maiden in the process, as the innings seemed to be stuck in quicksand.
Rahul Tewatia has made a name as a finisher but found himself in the middle after just five overs, and failed to take charge.The Impact Player lasted just one ball.

It was not until Rashid Khan appeared at No.8 to inject some impetus into the moribund innings. His 31 off 24 innings included the only six in the 17.3 overs that the Titans batting effort lasted. There was no assistance from the tail with the last three batsmen contributing four runs between them off 24 balls.

Aussie explodes at start

Jake Fraser-McGurk announced himself in the IPL with a belligerent half-century on debut against Lucknow SuperGiants. The high backlift and all-out aggression came as a breath of fresh air, though he seemed to be put in check a bit by spinners.

In Warner’s absence, the young Aussie – with the record of the fastest List A century to his name – was in no mood to take any prisoners on Wednesday either. The first ball he faced from veteran Sandeep Warrier was a full one, shaping out a bit. It was met with the straightest of bats with a high elbow as the ball was dispatched over the sightscreen. The third ball was smashed past mid-off as almost an eighth of the target was achieved in the first over itself.

When fellow Aussie Spencer Johnson came on to bowl the second one, he was carved over cover for an extraordinary maximum. There was no room for niceties in his game and when he made room to slap another one through the offside, the toe end took the ball to the third man fence. He was gone next ball, but Fraser-McGurk’s assault in the first two overs had already wiped off 25 runs from the target, as Delhi Capitals did a big favour to their net run rate, making up somewhat after the 106-run pounding they had received at the hands of Kolkata Knight Riders earlier in the competition.

Brief scores: Gujarat Titans 89 all out in 17.3 overs (Rashid Khan 31; Mukesh Kumar 3/14, Ishant Sharma 2/8, Tristan Stubbs 2/11) lost to Delhi Capitals 92/4 in 8.5 overs (Jake Fraser-McGurk 20) by six wickets