Rishabh Pant will lead the Delhi Capitals (DC) in the upcoming Indian Premier League (IPL) 2024 edition, confirmed co-owner of the franchise Parth Jindal. Pant is gearing up for his much-awaited return to competitive cricket since his fatal car accident in Dec 2022. Jindal, however, revealed that Pant will play solely as a batter in the first half of the tournament.

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“Rishabh is batting. He’s running. He has started his wicketkeeping. He is likely to be fully fit for the IPL. I am expecting Rishabh to play IPL and he will lead from match one. First seven games, we are going to play him only as a batter and depending on how his body reacts, we will take a call for the rest of the IPL,” Jindal said while speaking to ESPN Cricinfo.

Pant has been posting videos of his preparations for IPL 2024. He has missed a considerable amount of cricket following his horrific car crash. With him returning for DC, it will bolster their squad as the team struggled in IPL 2023 and ended at the ninth spot under David Warner. While the Delhi camp is happy to reappoint Pant as the captain, they are believed to be taking it slow with the Indian star batter as he won’t be donning the gloves at least in the first half of the mega event. 

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Jindal also opined on pacer Anrich Nortje, who has missed a lot of cricket in recent times due to injury concerns. On the South African pacer, who missed the 2023 ODI World Cup, SA20 and the entire multi-format series versus India at home, Jindal stated, “He’s fit. Right now, he is bowing at 80 per cent intensity. Next week, he will bowl at 100 per cent. He’s going to make his comeback in the IPL. He is going to join our camp and should be good to go for our first game.”

On Thursday (Feb 22), the partial schedule of IPL 2024 was released which covers fixtures for the first two weeks. Delhi will not play their first two home games at the Arun Jaitley Stadium in the national capital as the ground will not be ready to host the matches soon after WPL 2024. Thus, they have opted to play in Visakhapatnam.

DC squad for IPL 2024:

Rishabh Pant (c), Pravin Dubey, David Warner, Vicky Ostwal, Prithvi Shaw, Anrich Nortje, Abishek Porel, Kuldeep Yadav, Axar Patel, Lungi Ngidi, Lalit Yadav, Khaleel Ahmed, Mitchell Marsh, Ishant Sharma, Yash Dhull, Mukesh Kumar, Harry Brook, Tristan Stubbs, Ricky Bhui, Kumar Kushagra, Rasikh Dar, Jhye Richardson, Sumit Kumar, Shai Hope, Swastik Chhikara.

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