Rishabh Pant laments being a bowler short after PBKS defeat

Rishabh Pant was playing a competitive game at this level for the first time since his life-threatening accident. In his own words, he “was pretty nervous.” It wasn’t the first time that he was nervous on a cricket field, and he admitted that “you have to go through this when you enter the field.”

However, at the end of the day, when Delhi Capitals lost a game that kept swinging like a pendulum, it was the lack of an extra bowler that Pant kept lamenting about. It wasn’t his own batting or return to the field. 

Ishant Sharma had already picked up two key wickets before he twisted his ankle fielding. He had cleaned up Shikhar Dhawan, a batter against whom he has a great record, and he had run out Jonny Bairstow in a display of great flexibility while completing his follow-through. 

But he could bowl only two overs, and as a result, Pant had to use the complete quota of Mitch Marsh (as Delhi were already a bowler short because of substituting Ricky Bhui, a batter, with Abhishek Porel, another batter) and then bowl two overs of Sumit Kumar. Marsh and Sumit combined to bowl 32 balls but ended up giving 71 runs. 

“I think we had a par score, but I can't do much about it because we were one bowler short because of an injury. The wicket played as we expected it to play, I can’t make any excuses [about that]. End of the day, well played to them [Punjab Kings],” Pant said after the game.

If not for Porel’s blitzkrieg of an innings, DC would have struggled to take the game to the last over, which they did successfully. 

“Porel’s finish helped us finish on a high. It was an amazing innings. Congratulations to him. I think it’s just his third or fourth game, but his impact was huge. Really looking forward [to watch him bat] this season.”

The lack of an extra bowler and then the after-effects of Ishant’s injury also helped Sam Curran and Liam Livingstone cash in at the end. Curran was the only batter across both the teams who crossed 40 today, and he showed immense composure and temperament to bat through the innings and finish the job for Punjab, despite Kuldeep Yadav and Axar Patel putting in top spells in the middle. 

“Those two [Axar and Kuldeep] are world-class bowlers and play a lot of cricket for India. I thought we could take it deep with them being a bowler down. We were in a good position, and being with my great mate, Liam [Livingstone], was pretty special.”