Lucknow Super Giants skipper Rishabh Pant didn’t dwell too much on the missed stumping opportunity in the decisive moment of a pulsating clash against Delhi Capitals in the ongoing Indian Premier League (IPL) 2025 in Visakhapatnam. Ashutosh Sharma (66*) stepped out of the dark, became DC’s shining knight in armour and singlehandedly challenged the high-flying Super Giants. With odds stacked against his side, Ashutosh made LSG tremble and brought the equation down to six in the final six deliveries. Pant thought out of the box and handed the ball to Shahbaz Ahmed to see off the nervy affair. On the first ball, Mohit Sharma ambled down the crease, missed the line, and the ball went on to strike on his pad.
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Pant missed the chance to stump Mohit but used the DRS for lbw. The review indicated the ball had missed the stumps, allowing the Capitals to sigh in relief.
Mohit pushed the ball for a single and brought Ashutosh on strike. The 26-year-old smoked the ball for a towering maximum over the head of Shahbaz to snatch a slender one-wicket victory from the jaws of defeat.
As DC experienced a sense of schadenfreude, LSG fans focused on the stumping moment. For Pant, it is a common occurrence that can happen in a game of cricket.
“Definitely, luck plays a part in this game, and if it could have missed his (Mohit Sharma’s) pads, it was a chance for stumping. But these things happen in the game of cricket. You can’t focus on these things, but rather, you need to play better cricket,” Pant said in the post-match presentation.
Even though the coin spun in DC’s favour, leading to LSG being put to bat, the visitors breathed fire to entertain the spectators. Mitchell Marsh (72) and Nicholas Pooran (75) were the prime sources of fans’ enjoyment.
Marsh toyed with the hosts, while Pooran was a living nightmare for the Capitals spinners. Their explosive outing laid the foundation for LSG to cross the 200-run mark.
Despite falling short in the end, Pant was willing to take the positives from the game and emphasized the need to constantly get the basics right.
“I think our top-order batters played really well, and I think it was a pretty good score on this wicket. As a team, we are looking to take positives from every match, and as a team, we are looking to learn from it (every match.) The more basics we do right, the more it is going to be better for us in the future. We got early wickets, but we knew it was a good wicket to bat on. We had to keep doing the basics right more often than not,” he added.
Momentum oscillated from the moment the Capitals began pursuing a daunting 210-run target. The Super Giants rattled the Capitals’ top-order with their precise line and threatening lengths.
The beleaguered Capitals limped to 65/5 in the seventh over, with their victory on the verge of lying in a grave. DC needed something special, a moment out of the blue to rekindle the fading spark.
While Ashutosh wrote the final sentence of the gripping chase, DC had a couple of handy partnerships that contributed to their cause. A 55-run stand between Ashutosh and Vipraj Nigam (39), a 45-run partnership between Tristan Stubbs and Ashutosh, and a counterattacking 43-run partnership between Axar Patel and Faf du Plessis silently contributed to DC’s success.
“I think they had a couple of good partnerships. One with Stubbs, one with Ashutosh and one with one other guy (Vipraj Nigam.) I think he (Nigam) did a pretty good job and took the game away from us. There was enough for the bowlers, but I think we could have done the basics right. We felt the pressure, we are still settling in, but a lot of positives to take from this match,” Pant said.
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