Ricky Ponting reckons Rishabh Pant confident of playing the entirity of Ind T20 League 2024

In positive news for Delhi franchise and India fans, Ricky Ponting has reckoned that Rishabh Pant is confident of playing the entirety of the upcoming edition of the Indian T20 League.  Pant was involved in a fatal car crash on December 30, 2022 that has kept him out of action since. Slowly but steadily the wicket keeper returned to light fitness routines and has even been seen attending India’s matches in the last few months. 

Having been unavailable for last year’s Ind T20 League, the ODI World Cup and some critical Test series, the southpaw was expected to make a return to cricket during this year’s Ind T20 League. While Delhi coach Ponting reckoned that the 26 year old feels confident of his return, he remained uncertain on Pant donning the wicket keeping gloves or being skipper yet.  

"Rishabh is very confident that he's going to be right to play. In what capacity we're not quite sure yet. You would have seen all the social-media stuff, he's up and about and running well. But in saying that we're only six weeks away from the first game as well. So we're not sure if we'll get wicketkeeping out of him this year," Ponting said.

"But I'll guarantee if I asked him now he'll say, 'I'm playing every game, I'm keeping every game and I'm batting at No.4.' That's just what he's like, but we'll keep our fingers crossed," he added.

While Pant is optimistic about competing throughout the season, Ponting tempered his expectations and said that managing him for 10 of the 14 fixtures would be like a bonus for a team that dearly missed his services last season. 

He's such a dynamic player. He's obviously our captain. We missed him incredibly last year. If you understand the journey he's been on the last 12-13 months, it was a horrific incident. One that I know he feels very lucky to have even survived, let alone have the chance to play cricket again.

"We'll just keep our fingers crossed and hope that he can be out there and play. Even if it's not all the games, if we can manage him through 10 of the 14 games or whatever that might be then whatever games you can get out of him will be a bonus," Ponting added that David Warner will remain at the helm if Pant isn’t ready to captain the side. 

Delhi has managed to win just five of their last 14 games and finished second to bottom in Ind T20 League 2023, but Ponting looks towards this year’s season with a sense of buoyancy. 

"With Harry Brook coming into the set-up as well, so Warner, [Mitch] Marsh, Harry Brook, we've got some really good overseas batters," Ponting said. "Marsh and Warner will bat up the top somewhere and Harry Brook has been finishing off with England, so he'll probably play a finishing role for us there.

"[If] we can get [Anrich] Nortje and Jhye Richardson fit, and with the two spin options we've got with Axar Patel and Kuldeep Yadav we've got a really good squad that to be fair has probably underperformed the last couple of years, so we've got some work to do," Ponting added.