Rishabh’s pants down moment?

A lot will be said about ball 193 in Friday nightrsquos Indian Premier League match between the Delhi Capitals and the Rajasthan RoyalsFirst the ball To the naked eye as it happened it did look high The television commentators thought so Cricinforsquos BBB commentator thought so I thought so you thought so But the very first replay put paid to the misconceptions It was a legit delivery The replays showed 1 Rovman Powell had taken a huge forward stride bending his front leg and collapsing his rear knee 2 the ball was already dipping in its trajectory and 3 it was never going to be above waisthigh if Powell had been standing upright at the crease as the law requiresUmp called it rightUmpire Nitin Menon called it right With the naked eye albeit having the best seat in the house Menon did his job That should have been the end of story Sadly for the game and millions of youngsters watching it live across India it wasnrsquot For the record even had he been wrong the Delhi dugout would still be wrong Rishabh Pantrsquos fine and Pravin Amrersquos ban will still be a jokeSo what came over Delhi skipper PantThe images on TV clearly showed a headless chicken of a dugoutmdashwith Pant Shane Watson and Amre all scrambling Which is understandablemdashafter all this was the third six in an allsix ask over What was not understandable was thismdashthere was not one calming head in that dugout Everyone was aggravating the situation Pant was adamant and petulant Amre a Mumbai cricket stalwart in his time and a wellrespected and feared coach now first tried to calm Pant down but quickly caved in to star powerWhen that moment passedmdashand we could put that down to the heat of the momentmdashto what I assume would have been to the horror of wellmeaning Mumbai cricket watchers Amre such a wellrespected senior on the circuit walked into the fieldThankfully things cooled down enough for play to carry on Rajasthan won the match in the remaining three balls but the damage was doneDid Pant miss PontingBefore all this drama was a full innings An innings where Pant the new Captain Cool strangely looked a different person all day Was it down to Ricky Ponting not being around due to COVID Anybodyrsquos guess but in hindsight full props to the broadcasters who did a great job capturing all those moments when Pant lost his cool throughout the Rajasthan inningsmdashfrom the time Jos Buttler and Devdutt Padikkal cut loose after seeing off the powerplay through their middle overs massacre right till Sanju Samson finished off the innings powerfully While on finishes Shardul Thakur the other Mumbai man in the Delhi setup ended up bowling only three overs despite giving away only nine in his first twoPant lost his cool with more than one bowler When he lost it with the hero of the previous match Kuldeep Yadav it was left to the calm of Khaleel Ahmed who first reassured his captain that he would deliver the goods and then came good pinning Padikkal leg before Then when that very Khaleel shelled a sitter it was the turn of Mustafizur Rahman to go up to his captain and reassure him that he would deliver a good over next up The Fizz went for aplenty but at least managed to calm down his skipper Towards the end it was left to the likes of David Warner to calm the playersrsquo nervesLeadership missingOver the years Ponting has become the glue that holds this Delhi outfit together And he clearly has groomed Pant going by their public pronouncements It is quite evident that Ponting commands absolute respect in this Delhi setup which is good but on Friday nightrsquos evidence the entire machinery seems to be overdependent on himThe flip side of which came to fore at 193 The aftermath of that delivery seemed to hint that Ponting might have failed to groom a good secondrung leadership within his support staff A bad look for a team whose CEO bosses it in every auction and has other teams tearing their hair outPonting has a wealth of richesmdashAmre Agarkar and Watson But none of them seemed to step up and rein in the petulant skipper when it came to the crunchWhen the ruckus broke out one couldnrsquot help but wonder What would Ponting have doneThere was Pant gesticulating wildly Amre helpless Then there was Watson Watson feebly attempted to pipe down Pant but seemed to give up Here is when someone like Agarkar could have stepped in But it didnrsquot seem to have happenedIn fact the events of the last over were preshadowed by young Prithvi Shawrsquos strange and staccato prematch comments ldquoHe Ponting is the boss of the team If the boss isnrsquot herebut still Watson sir Ajit Sir Pravin Sir Hopesy are herehelliprdquoIf at all DC have an honest discussion about last night it has got to start with finding a leadership structure among coaching staff under Ponting Ideally it would be Amre but whoever it is they need a clear deputy to Ponting in placeMenon is the real dealWhich brings us to the biggest positive of the night Umpire Nitin Menon is ready for the big league In all those minutes of mayhem he was the only person who came off looking goodForget all his great work of the past two years Not only did he get the original naked eye call bang on right but he also handled the millionaire schoolboys with a very cool head Menon in fact stood his ground with grace much better than the senior umpires who were officiating when MS Dhoni and Virat Kohli had their respective meltdowns Those umpires melted in front of the superstar petulance Menon did notDhoni Kohli to blamePant wouldnrsquot have done what he did last night if Dhoni and Kohli hadnrsquot lost their heads in previous editions and questioned the umpires What happened on Friday night was a direct consequence of how Dhoni and Kohli bred disrespect all those months agoDhoni Kohli and Pantmdasheven if they donrsquot come out and apologisemdashneed to introspect All three are still around in the playing field They need to do something constructive right now Else tomorrow a Dhull or Hangargekar will do the same