Captain Rishabh Pant scored 39 off 36 deliveries as Delhi Capitals could only manage to post a total of 149/3 after being put in to bat by Lucknow Super Giants on Thursday at the DY Patil Stadium in Navi Mumbai.
Prithvi Shaw gave DC a strong start with his 34-ball 61, but Pant could not provide an explosive finish that was needed in a season of the Indian Premier League (IPL), where chasing has proved to be advantageous.
Former India cricketer Virender Sehwag was not impressed by Pant’s knock and said that he should play with freedom as that is his natural game and trying to bat with responsibility would see him have a poor season.
“The only thing Rishabh Pant needs to worry about is the approach with which he is playing. Wins and losses will keep happening,” Sehwag told Cricbuzz.
“The number of deliveries he played, 30 or 32 balls, in that many deliveries you can score 60 runs. So if Pant scored 20 more runs, then it would have proved costly for LSG, but those runs weren’t scored,” he said.
“Pant should not change his approach. He should play with freedom. The day he fires, he will win the match for his team, we all know that. But if he thinks that ‘I am the captain so I should play with more responsibility,’ then I don’t think he will be very successful this year in the IPL. Because it is not his style to play with responsibility or he thinks that he has to be there till the end,” he warned.
“He should come and hit it if he gets a bad delivery or take a single, there shouldn’t be a third option in his mind. He should have clear-cut thinking that if it’s in my radar, I will hit it, otherwise I’ll block it,” he concluded.
When asked if Pant should watch his videos to get some inspiration to bat more aggressively, Sehwag said that the wicketkeeper could watch his own performances in the past.
“Why mine, he should watch his own videos. He has played like that whether its in Tests or ODIs or T20s, he has batted like that before. So he should watch how he himself played, sometimes that gives you confidence,” Sehwag advised.
DC have so far won one and lost two matches in IPL 2022. They will be up against Kolkata Knight Riders in their next match on Sunday.
