Leaders Online: Delhi Capitals head coach Ricky Ponting has given a new update on Rishabh Pant's fitness. Ponting said that 26-year-old Rishabh Pant has started wicket-keeping practice at the National Cricket Academy (NCA) in Bangalore. Notably, he has been seen batting in the nets and his videos have gone viral on social media. Pant overcame many hurdles and is currently training hard to gain some momentum ahead of the upcoming edition of the Indian Premier League.
Meanwhile, NCA has already certified Pant fit for the match. This means that Pant can play all the matches in IPL without any interference from BCCI. In December 2022, Pant was seriously injured in a horrific car accident. Now he has recovered from this and started practicing. But the Delhi team does not seem to be in a mood to take any risk regarding Pant. Ponting noted that Pant is training for better fitness and his progress is being monitored constantly.
He added that batting is no longer an issue and at one point the team management had speculated that Pant might miss IPL 2024. But he has shown enough courage and dedication to make a comeback against all odds.
“He's played a few warm-up matches over the last few weeks, which is a real boost for us. I know he has worked hard on his fitness to get back to the level he is at now. He was played in one match. He fielded in it and batting doesn't seem to be a problem for him so far,” Ponting told India Today.
“We were obviously concerned and worried that he might not be ready in time to play in the IPL this year. Not having him in the team was a big loss for us last year. We can't even begin to describe what he was like in the last 12 or 14 months,” Ponting added.
Although Pant has been certified fit, Delhi Capitals are not sure if he will play all the matches in the upcoming season. Speaking about this, Ponting said that he is not sure about Pant's match fitness and if he is not fit for all the matches, he will be given a different responsibility.
'If he doesn't quite fit….'
“This is a big decision we have to make. Because if he's fit, you'd think he'd be straight back into the captaincy. If he's not fully fit and we want to use him in a slightly different role, we have to make some decisions there,” Ponting said.
