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At the Arun Jaitley Stadium on Saturday, Purani Dilli 6’s first game in the 2024 Delhi Premier League saw skipper Rishabh Pant struggle during his 35 off 32 deliveries.
Several Indian stars will be competing in the DPL over the next several weeks, which is being organised for the Delhi local players. Pant, a domestic cricket player for Delhi, was selected among the first players in the player drafts for the competition that took place at the beginning of the month. He was chosen by Purani Dilli 6, who also included Lalit Yadav and Ishant Sharma in the team.
South Delhi Superstars and Purani Dilli 6 squared off in the opening DPL match. After his team was asked to bat first in the third over, Pant, who is also captaining his side, came out to bat at No. 3.
The left-hander found it difficult to get going and at one point was only scoring 10 runs off of 14 balls while his partner Arpit Rana reached his fifty off of 37 balls.
Particularly against the slower bowlers, Pant found it difficult to get ahead of off-spinner Ayush Badoni and mystery spinner Digvesh Rathi. In the middle overs, Pant managed just 30 runs from 27 deliveries before being removed by Kunwar Bidhuri. His innings came at a strike rate of 109.37 and featured four fours and one six. It is noteworthy that not a single player with caps was included in the opposition’s starting lineup.
In their 20 overs, his team managed to score 197-3, with four of the other five batsmen scoring more than 140. Vansh Bedi, 21, completed the innings in just 19 balls with an undefeated 47.
After his return to the T20 league earlier this year, Pant—who was involved in a terrible automobile accident in late 2022—has not been playing at his best. He struck at 155.40 in the IPL and averaged 40.54, but his strike rate against the spinners—a team he has always performed well against—dropped to 119.5.
Pant scored 171 runs in eight innings at a strike rate of 127.61 and an average of 24.42 in the T20 World Cup that followed.
Many expressed worry after seeing Pant’s performance in the Delhi Premier League, wondering if it had harmed his ability to handle slower bowlers.