Rishabh Pant’s Delhi Capitals (DC) faced a defeat at the hands of Hardik Pandya-led Mumbai Indians (MI) in the 20th match of the Indian Premier League 2024 (IPL 2024) at the Wankhede Stadium in Mumbai on Sunday, April 7.
Opting to bowl first in the match, Delhi Capitals (DC) did a horrible job and leaked a huge number of runs. Even though they did not allow any Mumbai Indians (MI) batsman to touch the 50-run mark, DC ended up conceding 234 runs in their 20 overs.
Mumbai Indians (MI) openers Rohit Sharma and Ishan Kishan scored 49 and 42 runs respectively to give their team a good start. In the middle phase, Hardik Pandya played a slow knock of 39 runs. However, brutal knocks from Tim David and Romario Shepherd covered up the MI captain’s slow innings.
Romario annihilated Anrich Nortje in the 20th innings, scoring 32 runs and overall finishing with a score of 39 runs in 10 balls. Meanwhile, Tim David scored 45 runs off 21 balls and helped Mumbai Indians register the highest total in the history of T20 cricket, where no player reached a half-century.
Chasing the target, David Warner was dismissed by Shepherd early in the innings, but his partner Prithvi Shaw returned to form with a magnificent knock of 66 runs.
Abishek Porel was promoted to improve the order and did not disappoint as the youngster played a brilliant 41 run innings. However, the decision to promote the youngster led to the demotion of Rishabh Pant, who could only register 1 run.
Then, Proteas star Tristan Stubbs continued his batting brilliance in the Indian Premier League (IPL). He punished the Mumbai Indians bowlers, but no other batsman was willing to back him up.
In the end, Tristan Stubbs made an unbeaten 71 runs off 25 balls, with 3 fours and 7 sixes, and batted at a strike rate of 284. Despite Stubbs’ heroics, DC were restricted to 205-8 and lost the match. for 29. runs. The defeat against MI has pushed DC to the bottom of the IPL 2024 points table.
We were definitely in contention but we didn’t have enough runs in the batting powerplay – Rishabh Pant
At the post-match presentation ceremony, DC captain Rishabh Pant said that they were in the fight for victory till the end, but failure to capitalize on the power play cost them the match. Rishabh Pant stated:
“We were definitely in contention, but we didn’t get enough runs in the batting powerplay, especially when you are chasing such a big score. We batted well in the next few overs, but it is not easy to score 15 rpo consistently for many overs.”
Talking about the bowling unit, Rishabh Pant said that they had some bad overs with the ball and the bowlers needed to use variations to beat the MI batsmen. Rishabh Pant said:
“Yes, we had some bad overs (with the ball), but it happens sometimes. The bowlers needed to dive towards the wicket, the slower ones and the variations were important. The bowlers needed to understand the conditions well.”
Rishabh Pant last said that they have been bad with the bat and in death bowling, which has been the reason for the team’s poor performance in the current edition of the league. Rishabh Pant said:
“I think we need to improve in a few areas – death bowling and also our batting.”
