"Knew he was special the moment I laid my eyes on him...": Delhi Capitals coach Ponting on Abhishek Porel

Bengaluru (Karnataka) [India], May 11 (ANI): Ahead of his side's match against Royal Challengers Bengaluru (RCB), Delhi Capitals (DC) head coach Ricky Ponting hailed young wicketkeeper-batter Abhishek Porel, saying that the moment he laid his eyes on him, he knew that the Bengal cricketer was a "special talent".
DC will be locking horns against RCB at Bengaluru on Sunday. Both teams are in contention for a playoff spot. DC is at the fifth place in the points table with six wins and six losses, giving them 12 points. On the other hand, RCB is in the seventh spot with five wins, seven losses and 10 points. DC had registered a win over Rajasthan Royals (RR) in their previous game on May 7 while RCB had beaten Punjab Kings (PBKS) on Thursday.
Speaking ahead of the game, Ponting said that he has seen "extreme growth" of Porel during this tournament and last season, though they had tried more senior players for the wicketkeeper slot in the absence of skipper Rishabh Pant, who was out due to a road accident, it was Abhishek who stood out as a "special talent".
In 12 games so far, Porel has scored 267 runs in 10 innings at an average of 33.37 and a strike rate of 157.98. He has scored a half-century, with the best score of 63. Porel has smashed 31 fours so far this season, the joint-most for DC along with Pant. This marks a huge turnaround from his last debut season for DC, scoring just 33 runs in four games.
"I have seen extreme growth in Abishek Porel in this IPL. In fact, looking back to the start of last season, obviously [with] Rishabh's accident, we needed to bring in some wicketkeepers into our squad after the auction. We tried a lot of guys, a lot of guys that played, more senior guys than Porel, but the moment that I laid eyes on him, I knew that he was a very special talent," said Ponting.
Ponting hailed Porel as a great young player with a "bright future", who represents what IPL cricket is all about.
"I think, what we have seen in the last half a dozen games in particular, that talent is really starting to shine through. He is starting to work out what IPL cricket is all about. He has had a couple of different roles as well. In the first game of the season for us, he came in as a number batsman, the Impact Player, and made [31] off 10 balls there, and now we see him opening the batting and he has got better and better every game," said Ponting.
"I have got huge raps on him. I think he is a very, very good young player, obviously we will probably get to see him with the keeping gloves on tomorrow as well, with Rishabh not being there. And then we will work out, when we finalise our team, with the batting order and stuff, but I will be surprised if he is not at the top of the order again, because he has played really well, and he is someone that I think has got a really bright future," he added.
Delhi Capitals Squad: Jake Fraser-McGurk, Abishek Porel, Shai Hope(w), Tristan Stubbs, Gulbadin Naib, Axar Patel(c), Kuldeep Yadav, Mukesh Kumar, Ishant Sharma, Khaleel Ahmed, Rasikh Dar Salam, Kumar Kushagra, Praveen Dubey, Sumit Kumar, Lalit Yadav, Prithvi Shaw, Lizaad Williams, David Warner, Ricky Bhui, Jhye Richardson, Anrich Nortje, Yash Dhull, Vicky Ostwal, Swastik Chikara
Royal Challengers Bengaluru Squad: Faf du Plessis(c), Virat Kohli, Will Jacks, Rajat Patidar, Cameron Green, Mahipal Lomror, Dinesh Karthik(w), Swapnil Singh, Karn Sharma, Mohammed Siraj, Lockie Ferguson, Yash Dayal, Anuj Rawat, Suyash Prabhudessai, Vijaykumar Vyshak, Mayank Dagar, Glenn Maxwell, Akash Deep, Reece Topley, Tom Curran, Alzarri Joseph, Manoj Bhandage, Saurav Chauhan, Rajan Kumar, Himanshu Sharma. (ANI)