"Missed him incredibly last year": DC coach Ricky Ponting on Rishabh Pant's return

Visakhapatnam (Andhra Pradesh) [India], March 15 (ANI): As Delhi Capitals continue to gear up for the IPL 2024, head coach Ricky Ponting opened up about the return of star wicket-keeper batter Rishabh Pant ahead of the Indian Premier League 2024 season.
Pant will make a comeback to professional cricket 14 months after recovering from injuries sustained in a road accident in 2022. The Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) cleared the left-handed batter and declared him fit to participate in the upcoming IPL season.
Talking about his reunion with the wicketkeeper-batter, the DC Head Coach said they missed him incredibly last year.
"The whole tournament missed him. Rishabh brings so much energy to the team. He's got that smile on his face, he's hitting the ball as good as ever and he tends to lift all of his teammates around him," he said, according to a release.
Ponting recently joined Delhi Capitals camp in Visakhapatnam and was excited to see the performance of players after the first training session.
"What I saw today was very exciting, very promising. It's great to be back with the Delhi Capitals family," Ponting reflected.
"It's just the start. We don't expect to be practising at our absolute best right now. We're not even so much looking forward to the first game yet. We're getting some volume work done," he added.
Ponting went on to elucidate the approach that Delhi Capitals will adopt as they continue their hunt to lift their first IPL title.
"It's not a different approach, it's the same, but I'm going to be more intense with the way that I go about it this year. Every time I come here I talk about wanting to win the IPL and nothing changes there. I'm just going to talk about that a lot more this year," he said.
"I want the guys to be fully engaged and that's the reason we're all here. It's my job to bring success to this team. We're not talking about just winning enough games to qualify. We're talking about winning the IPL. Everything we do, every training session we have, every meeting we have, every recovery session we have, every chat that I have with the players is going to be about making them better to give ourselves the best chance of winning," he concluded.
Delhi Capitals will kick off their IPL 2024 campaign against Punjab Kings next Saturday at Maharaja Yadavindra Singh Stadium in Mohali. (ANI)