Rishabh Pant’s playful banter with Axar Patel takes the cake at toss after DC opt to bowl in their season opener
Rishabh Pant has left the Delhi Capitals, but his strong bond with former franchise teammates remains intact, as clearly demonstrated during the toss on Monday. Pant joined Lucknow Super Giants in the IPL Auction for a record-breaking bid of INR 27 crore. The wicketkeeper batter has shifted his bases from Delhi to Lucknow, and in his first match of IPL 2025, he had to face his former team in Visakhapatnam.
After parting ways with Pant, Delhi named Axar Patel their new skipper, who shared a good bond with the star India wicketkeeper both on and off the field.
At the toss on Monday, Axar flipped the coin, but Pant guessed it wrong as Delhi Capitals’ new captain opted to bowl first. However, Pant wanted to do the same as he teased Axar and chirped, “Batting first!”.
Former India spinner Murali Karthik, who was also present at the toss, also acknowledged the friendship and banter between the two captains.
Meanwhile, Axar talked about playing against Pant, under whom he played last season at Delhi and said they both know each other’s tricks.
“I have played with Pant before, he knows me and I know him. We know our tricks,” Axar said at the toss.
Pant also admitted that it is going to be an emotional game for him as it will be the first time when he will be playing in the IPL not wearing Delhi’s colours.
“I have played for DC all my life, so a lot of emotions there. Preparations have been well, everyone is in the right shape and in the right frame of mind,” Pant said at the toss.
The Capitals went ahead with Faf du Plessis, Tristan Stubbs, Mitchell Starc and Jake Fraser-McGurk as their four overseas options while they miss the services of their star batter KL Rahul, who returned to Mumbai for the birth of his first child.
DC vs LSG Playing XIs
Delhi Capitals: Axar Patel (c), Jake Fraser-McGurk, Faf du Plessis, Abishek Porel (wk), Sameer Rizvi, Tristan Stubbs, Vipraj Nigam, Mitchell Starc, Kuldeep Yadav, Mohit Sharma, Mukesh Kumar.
Lucknow Super Giants: Rishabh Pant (c & wk), David Miller, Ayush Badoni, Mitchell Marsh, Prince Yadav, Digvesh Singh, Nicholas Pooran, Shahbaz Ahmed, Aiden Markram, Shardul Thakur, Ravi Bishnoi.
