‘Rishabh Pant Will Learn With Time’: Sourav Ganguly Backs ‘Young Captain’ to Get Better – News18
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IPL 2024 was Rishabh Pant’s first competitive tournament in 15 months. (AP Photo)
Rishabh Pant-led Delhi Capitals won seven and lost as many of their league stage matches of IPL 2024.
Delhi Capitals’ defeated Lucknow Super Giants on Tuesday night to keep themselves mathematically alive in the IPL 2024 playoffs race but they need plenty of other results to go their way to ensure a top-four finish.
DC have won seven and lost as many matches with their regular captain Rishabh Pant back at the helm after missing the entire season as he recovered from injuries of a horror car crash.
DC Director of Cricket Sourav Ganguly says Pant is an ‘instinctual captain’ and expects him to get better with time.
“Pant is a young captain, he’ll learn with time,” Ganguly said on JioCinema. “The way he returned from injury to play a full season; we had our doubts during the offseason. Indian players are crucial, especially since the IPL shifted to 10 teams. I am very happy for him that he returned to play so well over a full season.”
“He has all my well-wishes for whatever is next. With time, he’ll become a better captain. Nobody is a great captain from day one, but he is an instinctual captain, he makes decisions on the ground. With more time, he’ll get better,” he added.
Ganguly picked Mukesh Kumar as DC’s best bowler of the season. The right-arm pacer picked 17 wickets from 10 matches at an average of 21.36 and an economy of 10.36.
“Mukesh has been our best bowler this season. He bowls all the difficult overs, whether at the start or at the death. There has been no match this season where we didn’t need his bowling in the death. We knew that conceding sixes would lead to more losses, so he’s consistently delivered there. Our Indian bowlers have been great this season,” he said.
Stay updated with the latest from IPL 2024, including top contenders for the IPL 2024 Orange Cap and IPL 2024 Purple Cap. Explore the complete IPL 2024 Schedule, IPL 2024 Points Table and players with the Most Sixes, Most Fours and Most Fifties in IPL 2024
The emergence of young batters Jake Fraser-McGurk and Tristan Stubbs are two among the two big positives for DC.
While Fraser-McGurk provided blazing starts at the top, Stubbs proved his ability to consistently go berserk in the slog overs, providing finishing touches to the innings more often than not.
“Both (Fraser-McGurk and Stubbs) players are really young, one is 22 and the other is 23,” Ganguly said. “This was the first year where both players played a full IPL season, and both have shown incredible improvement. I hadn’t seen much of Jake before, but I had watched Stubbs. Both players have improved a lot and in these conditions, it’s not easy to find overseas players in the middle order because the wicket is slow and the ball spins. Stubbs plays spin really well, so he’s been valuable for us.”
