Delhi Capitals: Delhi Capitals announced the new captain of their team today (16 March). The Delhi franchise has chosen David Warner as the captain of its team for IPL 2023. Warner got this responsibility due to Rishabh Pant being out of IPL 2023. David Warner is one of the most successful players of IPL and he has also captained in IPL matches before. He will make up for the lack of Rishabh Pant as a captain, but there will definitely be a churning going on in the Delhi camp about how to fill the gap that Delhi used to get from Rishabh’s explosive batting in the middle order.
Delhi Capitals has not yet announced the replacement of Rishabh. Certainly, he would not be getting any such Indian player who can bat like Rishabh. Rishabh has been a match winning player. Whether he opens, bats in the middle order or plays the role of a finisher, as long as he is on the pitch, there is little chance of Delhi losing, it is not easy to find a replacement for such a veteran player. It is possible that this team will choose playing-11 from its existing squad without replacement player.
Who can fill the gap of Rishabh Pant?
Rishabh Pant usually bats for Delhi between third to fifth order. The kind of batting he used to bat in this middle order, only South African batsman Riley Rossouw and English wicketkeeper batsman Phil Salt can do that kind of batting from the Delhi squad. But both of these players are foreigners, so if one of these two is played, then Delhi will have to put another foreign player on the bench, which will not be easy. Last season, David Warner, Mitchell Marsh, Rovman Powell and Anrich Norkhia were the main four foreign players for Delhi, who were part of the playing-11 continuously.
That is, in place of Rishabh Pant, only an Indian player will have to handle this responsibility. In such a situation, the Delhi franchise will have options like Sarfaraz Khan, Manish Pandey and Yash Dhull. All these three players are expert in batting but they are not able to bat in the same manner as Rishabh Pant. In such a situation, Delhi is definitely going to miss Rishabh Pant as a batsman.
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