Delhi Capitals captain Rishabh Pant was left amused after a fan on X (formerly Twitter) trolled the team's social media post they created for the wicketkeeper-batter's comeback for the IPL 2024 was confirmed on Tuesday, March 12.
Pant is all set to make his return to competitive cricket after he was declared fit by BCCI upon getting the clearance certificate from National Cricket Academy (NCA) in Bengaluru. The 26-year-old has been out of action for over 15 months following horrific and fatal car crash on Delhi-Dehradun highway on January 1, 2022.
To celebrate the return of Rishabh Pant for IPL 2024, Delhi Capitals' shared the graphics of Rishabh Pant on its X handle, with a message saying 'Tiger Returns'.
However, Pant's fan was particularly graphics designed by Delhi Capitals' social media team, saying he could have made better post and bantered that Rishabh Pant would return to driving after seeing this.
"Isse achha me banake de deta bhai , ye dekh kr wapis car chalane chal jayega wo". X user named @div_yumm wrote.
Rishabh Pant saw the humour side of the message by a fan and responded to it as well with two laughing emojis.
As soon as the BCCI announced that Rishabh Pant has been declared fit and all set to make his return to competitive cricket, fans couldn't the excitement as they will witness him playing after a very long time. While being on the sidelines for 15 months, Pant missed important tournaments, including WTC Final 2023, Asia Cup and ODI World Cup.
Rishabh Pant also missed the India's tour of South Africa as well as the Test series against England. His return to Indian team will further boost the batting line-up.
Rishabh Pant's IPL career
Rishabh Pant has been part of Delhi Capitals (formerly Delhi Daredevils) since the start of his IPL career in 2016. From thereon, the wicketkeeper-batter went on to make his strides in IPL and his performances in the tournament earned maiden national cap in a T20I against England in 2017.
Risbabh Pant had his best IPL season in 2018, where he accumulated 684 runs, including a century and five fifties, at an average of 52.61 and a strike rate of 172.63 in 14 matches. Since 2017, the 25-year-old consistently scored over 300 runs in every IPL season.
In 2021, Pant took over the reins of Delhi Capitals' captaincy from Shreyas Iyer after the latter moved to Kolkata Knight Riders as a skipper after he was bought at the IPL 2021 auction. Pant led DC to the playoff but lost to Kolkata Knight Riders in the Qualifier 2.
In his IPL career, Rishabh Pant has amassed 2838 runs, including a century and 15 fifties, at an average of 34.61 and a strike rate of 147.97 in 98 matches thus.
