IPL 2021: Rishabh Pant Reveals The Reason Why Marcus Stoinis Bowled The Last Over Instead Of Amit Mishra

Rishabh Pant, the Delhi Capitals, captain would be rueing his decision to bowl Marcus Stoinis in the last over the Royal Challengers Bangalore’s innings, even when Amit Mishra had an over left, as AB de Villiers carted the Aussie pacer for 22 runs off the bat, after Stoinis bowled a wide at the start.

That 23-run last over proved to the decisive factor as the Capitals lost by just a single run despite half-centuries from Rishabh Pant and Shimron Hetmyer.

RCB were 148/5 at the end of the 19th over, but Rishabh Pant had bowled out his three first choice pacers – Ishant Sharma, Kagiso Rabada, and Avesh Khan – by then and had an over of Amit Mishra, who had dismissed Glenn Maxwell earlier in the innings, remaining – but instead he went for the medium pace of Stonis.

AB de Villiers had reached his fifty by then and was ready to deliver an assualt in the last over – he clatterred 3 sixes off Stoinis taking RCB’s total to 171, which proved just enough for them to take the two points and climb to the top of the points table.

Rishabh Pant then revealed that it wasn’t a calculatio mistake to not complete Mishra’s overs. But he thought the spinners were not getting much help from the conditions in Ahmedabad, and hence he turned to Stoinis over the expeirenced leg-spinner.

“Obviously feeling disappointed, especially when you are on the losing side. They got 10-15 runs extra on this wicket. We counted the overs really well but in the end the spinners didn’t get the help we thought they would, that’s why I went with Stoinis for the last over,” Rishabh Pant said in the post-match presentation.

It’s good to take positives from all the matches: Rishabh Pant

The 23-year-old skipper, however, is taking positive from their loss to RCB. He praised Shimron Hetmyer, who smashed 53 off 25 balls, for keeping the chase alive till the last over, and bringing the Capitals back in the game when Pant sturggle to get going. The return of Ishant Sharma would be another major positive Rishabh Pant will take from the game.

They will take on the Kolkata Knight Riders on Thursday at the same venue.

“Hetty (Hetmyer) played a brilliant innings. Because of him we got close to the target. In the last over, we were thinking whoever gets the ball has to finish the job for the team. In the end we were one run short.

“It’s good to take positives from all the matches. As a young team, we like to learn from each and every game and want to improve each and every day,” the keeper-batsman asserted.

Also Read: I’ve Done All The Work And Now It’s All About Being As Fresh As I Can When I Go Out To Bat: AB de Villiers