NEW DELHI, April 17: Rishabh Pant will be in focus after his fiercely-debated World Cup exclusion when a buoyant Delhi Capitals aim to replicate its stellar away form at home against the Mumbai Indians in an Indian Premier League match here on Thursday.
Pant has been mum on being ignored for the World Cup in favour of Dinesh Karthik and it would be interesting to see how the 21-year-old�s bat responds to the disappointment.
With 10 points from eight games, both teams are on course to make the play-offs. While that counts as familiar territory for three-time IPL champions Mumbai Indians, Capitals are in the middle of a remarkable resurgence, having not finished in the top-four since 2012.
The celebrated duo of head coach Ricky Ponting and mentor Sourav Ganguly has managed to instill belief in the team members and that is visible on the field. The team now seems to believe that it can win the title after a long spell as the perennial underachiever of the competition.
�The support of the coaches Ricky Ponting and Sourav Ganguly... Their experience as a captain along with the belief they instill in us is great. At the same time the young boys in our team are also getting mature,� said senior player Shikhar Dhawan ahead of the game against Mumbai Indians.
�It has been a good season for us. It�s a clean slate for the Delhi franchise, new name, new administration, support staff everyone was new. Our team is strong and is a balanced side with the overseas and Indian players,� he added.
Squads:
Delhi Capitals: Shreyas Iyer(C), Prithvi Shaw, Shikhar Dhawan, Rishabh Pant (WK), Colin Ingram, Keemo Paul, Axar Patel, Rahul Tewatia, Amit Mishra, Kagiso Rabada, Ishant Sharma, Hanuma Vihari, Ankush Bains, Chris Morris, Sherfane Rutherford, Jalaj Saxena, Sandeep Lamichhane, Trent Boult, Avesh Khan, Nathu Singh, Bandaru Ayyappa, Colin Munro, Manjot Kalra.
Mumbai Indians: Rohit Sharma (C), Quinton de Kock (WK), Suryakumar Yadav, Yuvraj Singh, Kieron Pollard, Hardik Pandya, Krunal Pandya, Mitchell McClenaghan, Jason Behrendorff, Mayank Markande, Rahul Chahar, Jasprit Bumrah, Anmolpreet Singh, Siddhesh Lad, Ankul Roy, Evin Lewis, Pankaj Jaiswal, Ben Cutting, Ishan Kishan, Aditya Tare, Rasikh Salam, Barinder Sran, Jayant Yadav.
Match starts at 8. � PTI
