Rishabh Pant plunders quick fire 69 to help Delhi beat Gujarat

Rishabh Pant, 18, became the second youngest player in the history of the Indian Twenty20 competition to score a fifty, as he guided Delhi to a comfortable eight wicket win against table-toppers Gujarat in Rajkot on Tuesday.

Zaheer Khan, Delhi's captain, won the toss and opted to bowl first and his bowlers didn't disappoint, as they restricted Gujarat's power-packed batting line up to just 149 in their innings. Left-arm spinner, Shahbaz Nadeem, who took the new ball, claimed two wickets.

Gujarat required to make early in roads in their bid to undo Delhi, but Pant and his opening partner Quinton de Kock seized early advantage and smashed 115 runs from 81 balls, which is Delhi's joint-fourth highest opening stand.

The duo clobbered nine boundaries in the Powerplay that yielded 61 runs. Pant was more aggressive of the two and comfortably cut any width on offer from the bowlers. Suresh Raina, Gujarat's captain, brought himself into the attack when the frontline bowlers failed to provide the breakthrough, but Pant tore into him as well and plundered two fours and a six to bring up is 50 from just 25 balls.

Ravindra Jadeja finally found the breakthrough in the 14th over and dismissed Pant, but the damage had already been done. He had hit nine fours and two sixes in his match-winning knock. Delhi eased to victory with 16 balls remaining.

"It's pleasure playing for this team. I'm a youngster, and it's great to receive the support of the captain and coach. It's great to play under Rahul Dravid," Pant said.

Khan added that his side needed to be "applauded" for their effort. "A happy team is a winning team, and that's what you are seeing. Rishabh Pant was amazing, batting with Quinton would have helped," Khan said. "We have two back-to-back games, so the idea is to just let the boys do what they want to do tonight and then regroup."