IPL 2018: Ricky Ponting Lavishes Praise on Rishabh Pant And Shreyas Iyer
Delhi Daredevils (DD) head coach Ricky Ponting, on Sunday, lavished praise on the Indian players, especially Rishabh Pant and Shreyas Iyer. At the same time, the Australian rued the lack of consistent performance from the rest of the batting unit during the IPL season in which they finished at the bottom of the Indian Premier League’s (IPL) points table.
The Daredevils finished the season on a good note by notching up back-to-back wins in their last two round-robin matches. They were up against defending champions Mumbai Indians in their last league game.
The Shreyas Iyer-led side came up with a brilliant all-round show to win the game by 11 runs. Batting first, they rode on Rishabh Pant’s fifty to post a challenging 174 for four. After that, their leg-spinners Amit Mishra and Sandeep Lamichhane spun a web around Mumbai. The duo finished with three wickets apiece as Mumbai were all out for 163.
“We can’t blame the Indian players, they have been outstanding, we can’t complain. Prithvi Shaw, Sandeep are some of the talented players we have. I hope they will have a long and successful IPL career here with us,” Ponting told the media as he was quoted by PTI.
The batting legend Ponting further singled out Pant for special praise. The 20-year-old finished the league stage as the leading run-scorer after amassing 684 runs in 14 matches with the help of five half-centuries and a hundred. Ponting also had a word of praise for Daredevils skipper Iyer.
“It’s been an outstanding season for him (Pant). Obviously, he is wearing the orange cap right now. It would be great if he can manage to retain the orange cap by the end of the season. It is great personal recognition for his season but if we had an even contribution from a few more of the top order we could have been a threat,” said Ponting.
Even after the poor show early on in the ongoing Twenty20 league, Ricky Ponting is satisfied with the way promising stars rose to the occasion.
“Shreyas Iyer had a very good season but there was not enough consistency for our batting group to be up there with the leading teams,” he rued.
