Delhi Capitals missed Rishabh Pant: Parthiv Patel

LUCKNOW: KL Rahul-led Lucknow Super Giants have started their 2023 IPL campaign with a convincing win over Delhi Capitals by 50 runs at the Bharat Ratna Shri Atal Bihari Vajpayee Ekana Stadium in Lucknow on Saturday.

Batting first, the Giants put 193 on board, courtesy of Kyle Mayers who performed brilliantly on his IPL debut and scored 73 runs (38b, 2x4, 7x6). He was ably supported by Nicolas Pooran who scored a quickfire 36 off 21 balls including three maximums.

Chasing, Delhi only managed to score 143/9 with skipper David Warner (56 runs, 48b, 7x4) putting up a lone fight.

LSG's Mark Wood was the pick of the bowlers and returned with figures of 5/14. Parthiv Patel spoke on 'Match Centre Live' on JioCinema about how Delhi missed their star player Rishabh Pant and said, "Delhi must have missed Rishabh Pant - the batter, the wicketkeeper and the captain. You cannot replace a player like him. But from Delhi's perspective, they will need to figure out who will come and inspire them after this huge defeat. This will put a huge dent on their net run rate as well."

Patel also showered praise on Mark Wood who picked up the first fifer of the season. "We must applaud Mark Wood's plans and the way he dismissed Prithvi Shaw, as we have seen him get out like this in previous IPLs and international matches as well where there is always a gap between his bat and pad, and Wood bowled at him in that length continuously. You are given 24 bowls in total and taking five wickets in a T20 match is equivalent to scoring 100 runs."

Suresh Raina spoke on JioCinema about how well Kyle Mayers batted in his debut IPL innings and the cameos played by Badoni and Pooran.

"The way he (Kyle Mayers) was hitting the ball, powerful shots off Axar Patel and Kuldeep (Yadav), who are both very successful bowlers, was truly admirable. It was a good fifty to score. In spite of that, the way Badoni and Nicholas Pooran finished the game, with these small cameos of 25-30 runs helped them get from 155 runs to near 190 runs (193)."