Delhi Capitals captain Rishabh Pant plays a shot during the Indian Premier League (IPL) 2024 T20 cricket match between Delhi Capitals and Punjab Kings, at Maharaja Yadavindra Singh International Cricket Stadium, in Mohali, Saturday, March 23, 2024.
Credit: PTI Photo
Chandigarh: Making a comeback after 15 months following a horrific car crash, Delhi Capitals skipper Rishabh Pant was admittedly nervous when he went into bat but was satisfied how his first competitive game panned out.
He might have failed to set the stage on fire on his comeback match, scoring 18 runs off 13 balls with the help of two boundaries but he gave enough hints with his performance that he is back, inflicting a stumping and taking a catch.
"Personally I was pretty nervous (while batting) 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)," Pant said at the post-match press conference about his return.
Pant didn't get the desired result in his comeback match and Ishant Sharma's unfortunate ankle twist left him with a bowler short at the death.
"Ishant's injury was clearly evident because we were anyway one player short because we lagged with the batting a bit. I think we had a par score but because we were one bowler short, because of an injury, can't do much about it," he admitted.
With Ishant's two overs at his disposal, Pant had to use Mitchell Marsh, who isn't as sharp a bowler he used to be and Sumit Kumar, making his IPL debut was overawed by the occasion.
"Wicket played as we expected to play, can't make excuses. We will learn from it but having one bowler short is never good. We were short in terms of extra bowler. We actually pulled it back in the end (but couldn't complete the job). It is part and parcel of the game," the skipper said.
He was all praise for young Abhishek Porel, whose unbeaten 32 off 10 balls gave his team something to fight for.
"Abhishek 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.
PBKS skipper Shikhar Dhawan was satisfied with the performance of his side, and particularly praised Sam Curran (63 off 47) and Liam Livingstone (38 not out off 21) for their efforts.
"This is the first time I'm playing at this level since the last IPL. I felt we leaked a few extra runs, of course extra nerves are there in the first match. It's normal. Felt the wicket got better during the chase. Sam played well and Livingstone finished it beautifully," he said.