Delhi Capitals has gone through a drastic change in search for their maiden title in the Indian Premier League. They are the only side, among the eight original franchises, that has never featured in a single IPL final. To change their fortune, Delhi team owners decided to change the name of the franchise from Delhi Daredevils to Delhi Capitals and also went to change the theme color of the team.
In the same quest, Delhi keeps changing their team every year. They never retain the core of their team, which never allows them to settle down a good team. However, they opted to retain the batting core of their team and retained Shreyas Iyer and Rishabh Pant. Both batsmen did well for Delhi in the previous season.
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Especially Pant, who went on to score 684 runs in 14 IPL games last year, which were only second to top-scorer Kane Williamson in the race of orange cap. Delhi head coach Ricky Ponting is backing Pant to repeat this heroic in IPL 2019 as well and help DC to break the hoodoo of final for the first time. Ponting went on to call Delhi lad an exceptional talent.
Talking to India Today, he quoted “Rishabh Pant is not only an exceptional talent but also a really good thinker about the game. He has got a really mature head on his shoulders while on the field and probably a little immature off it with some of the things he does. But he is a fun-loving, young character. I think he is a very mature and a good a leader too. He understands the game and the situations really well.”
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The ICC Cricket World Cup 2019 is nearing and Delhi head coach wants his players to focus on IPL. Several players want to do well in IPL to impress the national selector and seal a place on the flight to England for the World Cup. But Ponting urges to the players, especially from Indian, not to think that far to the WC.
“I would love to have him the same season he had last year. I think he scored over 650 runs last year and was the leading run-scorer. I would like that to happen again. You just have to make sure that with the guys like Shreyas (Iyer), Prithvi (Shaw), Rishabh, and even Shikhar (Dhawan) are not thinking too far ahead about the World Cup, are fully invested in playing well for the Delhi Capitals in the IPL, giving us a chance to win the tournament,” Ponting concluded as saying.
