Rishabh Pant after scoring his first fifty since return from injury. Rishabh Pant scored a fine half-century to help Delhi Capitals win their first IPL 2024 game, defeating Chennai Super Kings by 20 runs on March 31.
Fans who flocked to the Dr. Y.S. Rajasekhara Reddy ACA-VDCA Cricket Stadium in Visakhapatnam on Sunday, March 31 to watch the Delhi Capitals take on the Chennai Super Kings left with a lot of happy memories after Rishabh Pant and MS Dhoni delivered memorable performances.
Pant came out to bat at No. 3 after David Warner and Prithvi Shaw had added 93 runs in the first ten overs. The wicketkeeper-batter struggled at first to find his timing, but eventually reached 23 off as many balls. However, he accelerated admirably and hit 28 off his last nine balls. Matheesha Pathirana eventually dismissed the southpaw for a 32-ball 51 in Delhi’s penultimate over.
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Rishabh Pant knock glistened with four fours and three sixes.
This was Pant’s first half-century after he made a comeback to competitive cricket after 14 months following a horrific car accident in December 2022. In the 18th over bowled by Mustafizur Rahman, the 26-year-old unleashed a one-handed six, a shot he made famous before his accident. After the match, Pant said that he had waited for a very long time to hit his trademark shot. He also asserted that he always had the belief to make a strong comeback and dominate the bowlers.
“One and a half years,” Pant said when he was asked if he was also waiting, like the rest of the cricket fraternity, to see him hit a one-handed six, as quoted by India Today.
“I hadn’t played much cricket, but I kept believing I could change the game. This is what I have built my life around. “I still have a lot to learn as a cricketer,” he added.
Following Pant’s blitzkrieg, Delhi set a challenging target of 192 for Chennai. The five-time champions, who had won both of their games in the Indian Premier League (IPL) 2024 prior to this match, had to work hard for their runs because the Delhi bowlers were excellent in their planning and execution. MS Dhoni came out to bat at No. 8 and scored a whirlwind 37 not out off 16 balls, but he simply had too much left to do. The Capitals won their first match of the season, defeating the Men in Yellow by 20 runs.
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