Lucknow Super Giants skipper Rishabh Pant felt his bowlers could have done the basics better at the back end as the target of 210 was defendable against a marauding Delhi Capitals who won by one wicket with three balls to spare in their IPL match on Monday. Ashutosh Sharma’s 66 not out of 31 balls and Vipraj Nigam’s 39 off 15 deliveries fashioned what looked like an improbable win after DC were dead and buried at 113 for 6. “I think our top-order batters played really well and I think it was a pretty good score on this wicket. We got early wickets, but we knew it was a good wicket to bat on. We had to keep doing the basics right more often. I think they had a couple of good partnerships,” Pant said at post-match presentation ceremony.
He lauded DC player Tristan Stubbs, who set the dice rolling before it was carried on by Ashutosh and Vipraj.
“One with Stubbs, with Ashutosh and one with one other guy (Vipraj Nigam.) I think he (Nigam) did a pretty good job and took the game away from us. There was enough for the bowlers, but I think we could have done the basics right.
“We felt the pressure, we are still settling in, but a lots of positives to take from this match.” An ecstatic DC skipper Axar Patel said that in his tenure as skipper, one should be prepared to take a roller-coaster ride.
“Be prepared for it now. It’s going to be like this only under my captaincy. Things will be up and down a little. Now that we have won, people won’t complain about why I gave that over to Stubbs (28 runs).” The way batters are slaying bowlers, Axar said that it started from last year.
“Don’t remember the last time I saw something like this. The way they played in the first six overs, we felt we gave a few too many early on. We dropped some catches as well. It looked like they could score 240, but we pulled things back.”
Player of the match Ashutosh dedicated his award to his mentor Shikhar Dhawan and said that it was a good thing that Vipraj initially attacked when he was not actually getting wood to leather.
“Well played to Vipraj. I asked him to keep hitting. He was very calm under pressure. Want to dedicate this award to my mentor Shikhar paaji.”
Ashutosh said that he had learnt his lessons from previous season when he couldn’t finish a few close games. “Took the lessons from last year. Missed out on finishing the game on a couple of occasions in the previous season. The whole year I focussed and visualised about it. Had the belief that if I play till the last over, anything can happen,” he said.
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