IPL 2019 Qualifier 2, CSK vs DC: MS Dhoni vs Rishabh Pant - A battle of master and apprentice

In one of the promotional videos this season, Rishabh Pant calls MS Dhoni his guru (teacher) but warns him he will come down heavily when his Delhi Capitals face Chennai Super Kings.

In the two matches they’ve played against each other, Dhoni has emerged the superior; scoring more runs and guiding his team home comfortably. On the eve of the third tie between them, and with a final berth at stake, Pant has his tail up with two successive match-winning knocks, played in contrasting manner.

He hung around to see his team through to a tricky chase against Rajasthan Royals with a solid half-century last week, and blitzed his way to 49 off 21 balls against Sunrisers Hyderabad on Wednesday to put his team on the cusp of victory. Although they suffered hiccups in the last over after his dismissal, Delhi Capitals ensured Pant’s efforts didn’t go waste. “I have always said that he (Pant) is the best finisher I have seen among all the young players. He just opened the game (on Wednesday),” said Prithvi Shaw.

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“He is such a good player that he can turn the game around anytime. If you need 50-60, he can turn it around,” he said.

Shaw rightly called Pant the best finisher ‘among youngsters’ for Dhoni is not done yet. At 37, Dhoni has still managed to match the youngster in the number of sixes this IPL — one every 13 balls as against Pant’s one every 11 balls. Both have scored over 400 runs. His lower strike rate (139 to Pant’s 164) and massive average (135 to 37) can be attributed to the fact that he has ended unbeaten on more occasions (7 against 3) and hasn’t thrown away his wicket as often as Pant has.

On Wednesday, Delhi Capitals saw through the tense home stretch to win despite Pant’s late dismissal. But that has not been the case always as Pant in earlier games would leave plenty of work for the late order, resulting in DC either losing or taking it to Super Over. Against SRH this time, he left little for the lower order, just five runs. The last two games have shown his progress as a finisher. Pant acknowledged his error but said a negative mindset doesn’t help and if there is a ball to be hit, it has to be hit. “It is in our muscle memory, and that is why we practise so much.”

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The Qualifier 2 will be played on an adjacent track, meaning it will again be a sticky wicket with support for spinners.

A batting line-up with only Shikhar Dhawan high on experience, Delhi will have to be mature against a side that relies almost entirely on experience. With Faf du Plessis, Shane Watson, Suresh Raina, Dwayne Bravo besides Dhoni in their dugout, the Iyer-Pant-Shaw trio will have to make use of Wednesday’s experience on the pitch count. The big threat for them, as Shaw pointed out, would be Harbhajan Singh and Imran Tahir.