IPL 2022: No doubt in my mind that Rishabh is the right person for captaincy, insists Ponting

Mumbai : Despite Delhi Capitals crashing out of IPL 2022 after losing a must-win match to Mumbai Indians at the Wankhede Stadium, head coach Ricky Ponting has insisted that Rishabh Pant is still the “right person” for the captaincy of the side.

Ponting’s backing comes after Pant had appealed for a caught behind dismissal of Tim David but didn’t go up for the review despite having a full quota of their reviews in hand. But replays later showed that David had nicked the ball behind to Pant, which proved to be very costly as the big-hitting batter smacked 34 runs off the next ten balls at a strike rate of 309.09 to play a decisive hand in Mumbai’s five-wicket win.

“Absolutely no doubt in my mind that Rishabh, even the last season, was the right choice for captaincy. When you wind the clock back, Shreyas (Iyer) dislocated his shoulder and Rishabh took over the captaincy and did a terrific job with the team. Last season, we finished on top of the table. We, unfortunately, lost the two final games. But look, there’s no doubt in my mind that he’s the right person,” said Ponting in the post-match virtual press conference.

Ponting further felt that Pant is still learning on the job to be a better T20 captain. “He’s just still a very young man. He’s still learning about the captaincy side of things. Being captain of a T20 team, especially in the IPL which is such a big and high-pressure tournament, is not an easy thing. And unfortunately, when you have his sort of profile, every single move you make, or every single move you don’t make, is going to be really heavily scrutinised. So he’s certainly got my full backing and looking forward to getting back and working together with him again next year hopefully.”

After the match ended, visuals of Ponting having a chat with Pant were shown on the television. Asked about what he was saying to Pant, Ponting revealed that he expressed his disappointment at what Delhi did tactically in the closing stages of the match.

“I told him that I was pretty disappointed with what we served up tactically at the end of that game. The way that we bowled and the fields that were set, considering the conditions and type of players who were at the crease, I think we got a lot of those things wrong. That might have been the difference in the game, that might not have been.”

“But as I said, I was quite disappointed with the way that game finished off. I’m disappointed with the way that our season finished off and I think that will probably leave a pretty sour taste in most of our mouths for the next 12 months until we can get back and do it all again.”

Talking about where Delhi went wrong against Mumbai, Ponting refused to single out the missed review against David as the reason for their loss and mentioned losing wickets in clusters with the bat early on.

“It’s always hard to put your finger on one single aspect of the game. I mean you can rewind the clock all the way back to the start of the game as well when our top-order batting was so poor. I think we were four down for 30 or 40 (50) early on. That”s not an ideal start to a T20 game either, especially a big game that we knew we had to win.”

“Obviously, Tim David played well after he was probably out the first ball but there are so many aspects of the game that we’ll be disappointed with and we’ll talk briefly about some of those tonight. But the important thing is the players have got to learn from games like that.”

“At the end of the day, I feel pretty gutted that game slipped through our hands when they needed over two runs a ball for probably the last seven or eight overs and didn’t close the game out. So, it’s disappointing on lots of fronts tonight (Saturday).”

–IANS