In a nail-biting contest, Delhi Capitals lost by one run, to Virat Kohli-led Royal Challengers Bangalore on Tuesday. This was Delhi’s second loss in the competition, and former India opener Virender Sehwag wasn’t impressed with the way skipper Rishabh Pant led his side. The southpaw along with Shimron Hetmyer scored half-centuries, but could not take his team over the finish line.
Sehwag lashed out at Pant for not utilising the bolwers properly, and rated his captaincy 3 out of 10.
“I won’t give him even five marks out of 10 for his captaincy because you just can’t make such mistakes. If your main bowler isn’t bowling, your calculations go wrong – that’s what captaincy is all about. You need to take care of that. A captain must manage his bowling resources according to the situation.
“You need to learn that. Or else you hand over the ball to whomsoever you want. The capability of a skipper is measured by how he turns the game around. He needs to make changes in the bowling or field position accordingly,” Sehwag told Cricbuzz.
“So, if Rishabh Pant wants to become a good captain, he needs to keep these small things in his mind. Play smart cricket, then only you can become a smart skipper,” he added.
Meanwhile, Ashish Nehra slammed Pant’s slow batting. “The way Rishabh batted in the middle overs and the number of runs he missed out on during the death overs, that was nothing but a poor strategy. If Shimron Hetmyer had lost his wicket early, we could have seen DC losing by 25 runs.
“They planned their chase poorly as two of your set batsmen returned unbeaten and you lost the game by 1 run. That shouldn’t have happened in this format,” Nehra said.
