KKR vs DC: "Was a good option" - Rishabh Pant defends bizarre 'bat first' decision; attacks batters after defeat

Under the leadership of Rishabh Pant, the Delhi Capitals (DC) locked horns with the Shreyas Iyer-led Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) in the 47th match of the Indian Premier League 2024 (IPL 2024) on Monday, April 29 at the Eden Gardens in Kolkata.

Delhi Capitals won the toss and surprisingly decided to have a go with the bat first in the match. The decision heavily backfired as the batters struggled at the Eden Gardens. Only two players in Kuldeep Yadav (35) and Rishabh Pant (27) breached the 20-run mark in the innings as DC registered an underwhelming score of 153/9.

Defending the total, Delhi bowlers were at the receiving end of a Phil Salt assault as the opener slammed quickfire 68 runs. In the end, Shreyas Iyer (33) and Venkatesh Iyer (26) joined forces to steer KKR to a win by 7 wickets with 21 balls remaining to make their position even stronger in the IPL 2024 points table.

Speaking after the match, Rishabh Pant launched an attack on his batters for the defeat. He also defended the bizarre decision of DC to bat first despite the biggest-ever run-chase in the previous match at the venue and knowing the fact that the batting gets easier in the second innings. Rishabh Pant said:

"It was a good option to bat first. As a batting unit, we didn't bat well, 150 was below par with how things were going."

Rishabh Pant added that they will learn from their mistakes and move on to focus on upcoming matches. Rishabh Pant said:

"But we learn from our mistakes, every day is not your day. The way we were going as a team was nice (winning 4 out of their last 5 games), but these games come along in T20s." 

Rishabh Pant signed off by again lashing out at his batters, saying that a total of over 180 could have given the bowlers a chance to defend. Rishabh Pant said:

"I think anything around 180-210 would have been a good score, we didn't give our bowlers enough runs to defend."

DC vs KKR Previous Meeting In IPL 2024

On April 3, Delhi Capitals and Kolkata Knight Riders faced off each other at the Dr. Y.S. Rajasekhara Reddy ACA-VDCA Cricket Stadium in Visakhapatnam and the Knight Riders had won that match by 106 runs.

It was a run-fest in Visakhapatnam as Kolkata Knight Riders posted the third-highest total in the history of IPL - 272/7 - riding on sensational half-centuries from Sunil Narine (85) and Angkrish Raghuvanshi (54). Andre Russell (41) and Rinku Singh (26) also made decent contributions. For DC, Anrich Nortje (3), Ishant Sharma, Mitchell Marsh (1) and Khaleel Ahmed (1) were among the wickets.

In reply, Delhi Capitals were off to a horrible start as they faced a batting collapse and were reduced to 4-33. Rishabh Pant (55 ) and Tristan Stubbs (54) scored fifties but DC could only manage 166 as they were bowled out inside 17.2 overs to lose the match by a huge margin of 106 runs.