Former South Africa captain Graeme Smith feels that Rishabh Pant promoting himself to number three in the batting order may be the path Delhi Capitals should look at in their future matches of IPL 2022.

In their six-wicket loss to Lucknow Super Giants on Thursday, Pant struggled to get going as he made just eight runs in 19 balls.

Pant finally made a connection with the ball in his innings when he lofted leg-spinner Ravi Bishnoi through extra cover on the final ball of 15th over. He then carted pacer Andrew Tye for four and two sixes in the 16th over. But Jason Holder and Avesh Khan tied him down with yorkers and slower balls as Pant ended unbeaten at 39 off 36 balls for Delhi to post a below-par 149/3 in 20 overs.

“Rishabh has got starts in every game, but everyone needs to be patient. The strike rate hasn’t quite happened but everyone needs to be patient. Today DC needed to rebuild after losing a couple of wickets but true, the strong finish never came. They needed to get to a total of 170-180,” Smith was quoted as saying by cricket.com.

Asked whether Delhi should continue with Pant at four, Smith had a different take. “Maybe the way forward is to promote Rishabh. Get him up to No.3 and take the pressure off him and give him more time. Maybe this way he’ll be able to set the tone and not think too much.”

Pant, Delhi’s captain, is yet to notch up big scores in IPL 2022 while his wicketkeeping contemporaries, Ishan Kishan, Sanju Samson, and Dinesh Karthik have produced impactful performances. Smith, who won the inaugural edition of IPL in 2008 with Rajasthan Royals, thinks that an indifferent start to Pant’s form in IPL 2022 won’t have any bearing on his spot in the Indian team for Men’s T20 World Cup in Australia later in the year.

“I can’t see Rishabh Pant missing out despite the likes of Samson, DK and Kishan doing well. Ultimately it will come down to combinations. Who gets picked will depend on the conditions, and who they are coming up against. Pant has to be there. You can’t leave out Pant. He is going to play all formats for India for a very long time. He’s going to be a superstar.”

Smith pointed out that apart from Prithvi Shaw’s 61 off 34 balls, no other Delhi batter stepped up to keep a flying start in the power-play going in the middle overs.

“It was a one-man show (Prithvi Shaw). Sarfaraz and Pant had to recover from a couple of quick wickets. But in the end, it was only Prithvi Shaw that dominated the game from a DC perspective. After the powerplay, you thought they were on course for 200, but no one else got going. It was bizarre. Good night for Shaw individually, but Delhi would be disappointed. It was a disappointing batting performance.”

IPL 2022 marked the start of a new era in the history of the tournament. With two new teams in Lucknow Super Giants and Gujarat Titans apart from a mega auction, the eight-team competition was upgraded to 10. After 15 matches, the newbie teams have done well, though it is still early days in the competition.

Mumbai Indians, the five-time winners of the league, have made their usual slow start by losing their first three matches to Delhi Capitals (by four wickets), Rajasthan Royals (by 14 runs), and Kolkata Knight Riders (by five wickets).

But after Kolkata’s Pat Cummins stunned them with a 14-ball fifty, alarm bells may well ring in the camp now that in a 10-team competition, there is very little margin for error.

They did enter playoffs in 2014 after losing the initial five matches and even won the trophy in 2015 after losing the first four matches in the season.

But 2022 seems to be a different one. One could sense from Rohit Sharma’s tone after Cummins’s carnage that he wasn’t in his usual calm and chilled self while speaking to the broadcasters.

In all three matches, Mumbai has put out sparking individual performances but the side hasn’t fired as a collective unit to bag two points in the season.

If in the second half of IPL 2021, where batting performances prevented them from reaching playoffs, it is the bowling in the first three games which has let them down.

With no Jofra Archer, Mumbai’s bowling has been largely dependent on pace spearhead Jasprit Bumrah (three wickets at an economy rate of 8.32) apart from Tymal Mills (six wickets at an economy rate of 9.90) and leg-spinner Murugan Ashwin (four wickets at an economy rate of 7.10).

It is the rest of the bowling line-up comprising Daniel Sams (one wicket at an economy rate of 12.63), Basil Thampi (three wickets at an economy rate of 9.50), and with some occasional chipping in from Kieron Pollard (one wicket at an economy rate of 11.50) which have proved to be the weak links.

Bowling coach Shane Bond feels that bowlers going for big runs in and over is something that has hurt Mumbai’s bowling plans.

“It’s been a real mixed bag from us I suppose from a bowling unit. You look at the last game; the first 10 overs were fantastic. We had a couple of overs that got away from us.

“It’s been a little bit of a pattern for us, that we’ve done some really good stuff, we’ve taken out a number of the big players exactly how we thought we would. But when the game’s been in the balance, we’ve gone for some overs of 20-plus. And when you go for overs of 20-plus, then you end up losing matches.”

In the opening game against Delhi Capitals, Lalit Yadav and Axar Patel took 15 runs off Bumrah in the 16th over, 13 runs off Thampi’s last over and 24 runs off Sams in the 18th over.

In their second match against Rajasthan Royals, Thampi was smashed for 26 runs by Jos Buttler in the fourth over of the first innings.

Ashwin was hit for 21 runs in the 11th over while Pollard conceded 26 runs in the 17th over. In their match against Kolkata, Mills and Bumrah conceded 14 and 12 runs twice while Sams was carted for 35 runs by Cummins.

In their batting, Ishan Kishan, Suryakumar Yadav, Tilak Varma, and Dewald Brevis (in one appearance) have shown a good show. But with no Quinton de Kock and Pandya brothers in the mix, captain Sharma has to step up with the bat.

Scores of 41, 10, and 3 don’t do justice to Sharma’s famed match-changing skills with the bat.

“All three games that we’ve played, we’ve done some really good things. It’s just that those little moments, and that indication, you know an individual has to understand, in that period of time when the game is happening. There will be an indication that ‘this is the over’. What we do in that over, those little, little things — that we need to try and squeeze that, and get it towards our side. Get that momentum towards our side,” were Sharma’s encouraging words in the dressing room.

If Mumbai takes Sharma’s words of seizing the little moments in the game seriously, then they might find the path which would take them out of their bowling issues as well as the skipper to find runs consistently.

With matches against Royal Challengers Bangalore, Punjab Kings, and Lucknow Super Giants lined up, Mumbai can’t afford to have any more slip-ups now.