Pant has not performed since his automobile accident in December 2022 when he thought his “time on this world was over.”
“Rishabh is very assured that he’ll be proper to play,” Ponting mentioned. “In what capability we’re not fairly positive but.
“You’ll have seen all of the social-media stuff, he is up and about and operating effectively. However in saying that we’re solely six weeks away from the primary sport as effectively. So we’re unsure if we’ll get wicketkeeping out of him this 12 months.
“However I am going to assure if I requested him now he’ll say, ‘I am playing each sport, I am holding each sport and I am batting at No.4.’ That is simply what he is like, however we’ll hold our fingers crossed.
“He is such a dynamic participant. He is clearly our captain. We missed him extremely final 12 months.
“If you happen to perceive the journey he is been on the final 12-13 months, it was a horrific incident. One which I do know he feels very fortunate to have even survived, not to mention have the prospect to play cricket once more.
“We’ll simply hold our fingers crossed and hope that he might be on the market and play. Even when it is not all of the video games, if we are able to handle him by way of 10 of the 14 video games or no matter that could be then no matter video games you will get out of him can be a bonus.”
“Marsh and Warner will bat up the highest someplace and Harry Brook has been ending off with England, so he’ll in all probability play a ending position for us there.
“[If] we are able to get [Anrich] Nortje and Jhye Richardson match, and with the 2 spin choices we have got with Axar Patel and Kuldeep Yadav we have got a very good squad that to be honest has in all probability underperformed the final couple of years, so we have got some work to do.”
Richardson’s availability can be a significant query for Capitals. The Western Australia fast has not performed since injuring his facet in the course of the BBL and there is no timeline on his return for WA on the again finish of the Australian home season. He additionally suffered one other shoulder dislocation earlier than the BBL and was unable to throw within the video games he performed.
However Ponting was extra involved about Capitals’ batting, notably on their house floor at Arun Jaitley Stadium, the place they gained simply two of their seven house video games in IPL 2023.
“Our batting was disappointing final 12 months,” Ponting mentioned. “So much of the blokes that we felt would have the ability to deal with troublesome situations in Delhi, a spinning wicket lots of the time, we weren’t ok in these situations.
“We have got some challenges with our house venue to be sincere. We rock up each sport, we’re probably not positive precisely what type of wicket we’ll get.
“So that you’d go to the public sale anticipating you are going to get one [type] of floor and also you rock up for 5 video games, seven video games there and also you get 5 completely different pitches in order that does make it exhausting. However we positively lacked on batting high quality final 12 months, which is what we have tried to essentially enhance on this 12 months.
“We have gone to the effectively with a pair of actually extremely proficient younger Indian gamers that we predict which are able to play right away. That is the factor concerning the IPL, it is one 12 months to the large public sale so it is not like you may actually make investments an excessive amount of in these younger blokes and hope to enhance them in a single day. You have to get the very best expertise on the market that you just assume’s able to play. And we have got a couple of of these this 12 months.”
Alex Malcolm is an affiliate editor at ESPNcricinfo
