'Ambitious' Porel Eyes Historic Title Triumph With DC: Details Inside

Like any other cricketer from the country, young Delhi Capitals opener Abishek Porel aspires to represent India in the future but said his current focus is to help his side win its maiden Indian Premier League trophy this year.

Chasing 160, the 22-year-old made 51 off 36 balls to help DC win by eight wickets against Lucknow Super Giants here on Tuesday.

"Obviously, I am enjoying every innings, trying to develop in every innings. The future plan is to play for India, play for the country for a long period," Porel said at the post-match press conference.

"But current focus is the IPL trophy, how can I help the team in winning the trophy, how can I contribute for DC. This matters a lot right now.

"I know my game and the support staff also knows that. The support staff always tells me to play freely and not to take any tension." Asked to bat, LSG made a quick start with Aiden Markram (52) and Mitchell Marsh (45) sharing 87 runs for the opening stand in 10 overs.

But DC bowlers made a brilliant comeback with Mukesh Kumar (4/33) leading from the front to restrict LSG to 159 for 6, a target which Porel feels was gettable.

"The wicket was very good, so 160 score was a bit less, so we had that in mind that we need to chase these runs. Good toss to win. There was not much difference but the skipper took a good decision," Porel said.

"They (LSG) got runs initially but we knew we can restrict them in middle overs. We had good spinners so we backed ourselves and made a comeback with some good bowling in the second half." LSG assistant coach Vijay Dahiya said the hosts lost the momentum in the second half of their innings after a bright start.

"I think leaving pitch, you can see that we scored over 80 runs in nine overs. From there we lost the momentum a bit. We had the momentum and we should have taken advantage of that," he said.

"Let's give credit where its due. I think Delhi Capitals' bowlers assessed the conditions better. They made a very good comeback."

 

(This report has been published as part of the auto-generated syndicate wire feed. Apart from the headline, no editing has been done in the copy by ABP Live.)

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