Delhi Capitals ( Photo source : IPL )
New Delhi, 25 April 2024: A delightful finish to a night filled with ups and downs for the Delhi Capitals saw skipper Rishabh Pant producing a sensational performance to lead his team to a thrilling four-run win over Gujarat Titans at Arun Jaitley Stadium on Wednesday.
Pant’s unbeaten 88 off 43 balls and Axar Patel’s 66 off 43 balls, along with Tristan Stubbs’ fiery unbeaten 26 off 7 balls led the Delhi Capitals to post a mammoth 224/4 in 20 overs. The home side then survived the late onslaught from David Miller and Rashid Khan as the bowlers restricted Gujarat Titans to 220/8.
Reflecting on the win Delhi Capitals‘ Assistant Coach Pravin Amre said, “It’s so important to win for the crowd. They all come here to support us every game. It was a good game of cricket for the crowd. Yes, Gujarat came close, but in this format, even a one-run win is a victory for us.”
When asked about the decision of promoting Axar Patel to the No.3, Amre explained, “The idea was to give him some chance. So, the plan was to let Indian batsmen go and take on Sai Kishore in the powerplay, but he came in the 19th over due to the partnership he had with Rishabh. He showed maturity in batting. I think that’s the reason we got 96 runs in the last five overs.”
He further added, “All six batters scoring for is important for us and Axar was not having a big knock. We were confident Porel can bat both at top and bottom, so we wanted to give him that role of a finisher along with Stubbs today.”
Speaking about Pant’s match-winning knock, Amre stated, “I remember his first day when he came at the Vizag camp, he went straight to ground from the airport. He was hungry, he made sure that he was going to utilise every day. And you can see all his hard work is paying off.”
“A couple of good knocks gave him the confidence, and today’s was special. He single-handedly got 31 runs against an experienced bowler like Mohit Sharma in the 20th over and that really shows that he is in good form,” he concluded.
The Delhi Capitals will take on Mumbai Indians in their next match of IPL 2024 at Arun Jaitley Stadium in New Delhi on Saturday.
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