Kolkata Knight Riders’ from right, head coach Abhishek Nayar, assistant coach Shane Watson, mentor Dwayne Bravo and Sunil Narine share a light moment during a practice session.
| Photo Credit: K.R Deepak

Delhi Capitals’ captain Rishabh Pant.
| Photo Credit: PTI

Delhi Capitals captain Rishabh Pant has been fined ₹24 lakh for a second over rate offence in the 2024 Indian Premier League.

Pant was guilty of maintaining a slow-over in the game against Kolkata Knight Riders in Visakhapatnam on April 3.

The rest of his teammates were fined 25% of their match fees. “Rishabh Pant, the Delhi Capitals captain, has been fined after his team maintained a slow over rate during their TATA Indian Premier League (IPL) 2024 match against Kolkata Knight Riders…” said the IPL in a statement.

“As it was his team’s second offence of the season under the IPL’s Code of Conduct relating to minimum over rate offences, Pant was fined ₹24 lakhs.

“The rest of the members of the Playing XI, including the Impact Player, were each individually fined either ₹6 lakhs or 25% of their respective match fees, whichever is lesser,” it added.

Delhi Capitals lost the game to KKR by 106 runs after the latter smashed 272 for seven, the second highest total in IPL history. It was Delhi Capitals’ third loss in four games.

Riding on 20-run win over Chennai Super Kings, Delhi Capitals will start on a confident note during their Indian Premier League 2024 match against Kolkata Knight Riders.
| Photo Credit: PTI

The 20-run win versus Chennai Super Kings is an indicator of where Delhi Capitals was, is, and can be. The squad on paper and its performance in the first two matches was uninspiring and, according to assistant coach Pravin Amre, is inspired now and can do better.

That establishes that DC isn’t complacent having just outplayed the defending champion.

What caused the turnaround needn’t be examined forensically. For it may easily be attributed to its familiarity of its home ground. “We were here for two weeks (pre-season), and I think the first couple of weeks, there was a dew.

“But we were aware that there won’t be that much (dew) that day in particular, because it was windy. And I think that was an important decision to go there and bat first,” said Amre on the eve of his team’s clash against Kolkata Knight Riders here.

It’s with this kind of familiarity and the wind-supported swing that Khaleel Ahmed generates with the new ball that DC will take on the Knight Riders.

On the other hand, it might just be the right venue and match for Mitchell Starc to come good for the visitor. Starc against the DC openers would make for an interesting contest. As it would to watch DC trying to contain Andre Russell from muscling shots of mayhem.

Overall, it’s about if the newly confident DC can best a high-flying KKR.

The Teams (From):

Delhi Capitals: Rishabh Pant (c), David Warner, Prithvi Shaw, Yash Dhull, Abishek Porel, Axar Patel, Lalit Yadav, Mitchell Marsh, Pravin Dubey, Vicky Ostwal, Anrich Nortje, Kuldeep Yadav, Jake Fraser-McGurk, Khaleel Ahmed, Ishant Sharma, Mukesh Kumar, Tristan Stubbs, Ricky Bhui, Kumar Kushagra, Rasikh Dar, Jhye Richardson, Sumit Kumar, Swastik Chikara and Shai Hope.

Kolkata Knight Riders: Shreyas Iyer (c), KS Bharat, Rahmanullah Gurbaz, Rinku Singh, Angkrish Raghuvanshi, Sherfane Rutherford, Manish Pandey, Andre Russell, Nitish Rana, Venkatesh Iyer, Anukul Roy, Ramandeep Singh, Varun Chakravarthy, Sunil Narine, Vaibhav Arora, Chetan Sakariya, Harshit Rana, Suyash Sharma, Mitchell Starc, Dushmantha Chameera, Sakib Hussain, Mujeeb Ur Rahman.

Match starts at 7.30pm IST.