Rishabh Pant shakes off rust, eyes World Cup comeback

Delhi Capitals remained winless in the Indian Premier League (IPL) but captain Rishabh Pant showed improvement as he eyes a place in the India squad for the T20 World Cup in June.

Pant suffered a horrific accident in December 2022 when his car hit a central divider, flipped over twice and caught fire necessitating multiple surgeries.

The 26-year-old stumper-batsman was cleared to play the IPL and a strong display in the 10-team league could help him return to the India T20 squad for the World Cup to be co-hosted by West Indies and the United States.

Pant made 18 in his first outing since that accident against Punjab Kings and Delhi succumbed to their second successive defeat on Thursday when inaugural champions Rajasthan Royals beat them by 12 runs.

Pant took a catch to dismiss Rajasthan counterpart Sanju Samson and made 28 off 26 balls as Delhi fell short of their 186-run target.

Known for his six-hitting prowess, Pant played second fiddle to David Warner (49) in their 67-run stand that steadied Delhi after Mitchell Marsh and Ricky Bhui had fallen in the same over.

Pant opened his account with a cheeky boundary off Nandre Burger and slog-swept Yuzvendra Chahal but could not convert the start into a big knock and eventually fell to the spinner.

"Definitely disappointed," Pant said after the match.

"We are going to learn from this match and, hopefully, we'll do better in the next game."

"The platform that Warner-Marsh gave was really nice ... We had to consolidate but in the end we had a lot of runs to cover up."

Rajasthan signed South African spinner Keshav Maharaj on Thursday, replacing seamer Prasidh Krishna, who is recovering from a surgery.

Afghanistan spinner Mujeeb Ur Rahman has been ruled out of the IPL with a hand injury and 16-year-old spinner Allah Ghazanfar will replace his compatriot at the Kolkata Knight Riders.