NEW DELHI: Rishabh Pant looked at home at the Arun Jaitley Stadium on Friday evening. In between wearing giggle during warmups and sitting down with the Delhi and District Cricket Association staff for long chats, he batted for over an hour in the nights sharpening his power game through the off-side.
IPL 2024: POINTS TABLERESULTS
The square looks fresh and so does Pant. Delhi Capitals are banking on both to consolidate their position in the points table. For, they know ‘power game’ will be the operative phrase when they turn up against Sunrisers Hyderabad on Saturday evening.
The pitch here has produced a deluge of runs since the ODI World Cup last October-November. It was a sight to watch SRH’s Travis Head and Pant bat in adjacent nets for a while.
“We don’t mind having a shootout tomorrow if it’s a high-scoring game against Sunrisers,” Capitals coach Ricky Ponting wasn’t going to beat around the bush.
The SRH batters have wielded their bats to kill games so far in this tournament. One may expect the same on Saturday as well with the pitch expected to play true for the batters.
It looks like Capitals have to do all the work.
‘Fans’ reaction will decide fate of Impact Player’
One of the bigger talking points this season has been the effect the ‘Impact Player’ has had on the soaring totals. Ponting weighed in too on it.
“This impact player is taking the all-rounders out of the game a little bit. You know you can play your specialist batsman down to (number) 8 pretty much and then you can ring a bell in the second innings. For a coach and for the players, it’s probably not ideal. But I think a lot of what this game tries to do is it tries to entertain people," said Ponting.
"The T20 game is an entertainment package. It’s probably better asking the spectator what they think about the impact player. If everyone is loving the fact that teams are making you know 220 up to 250 in a lot of the games, then it should stay,” he said.
