Phil Salt- The Johnny-Come-Lately for Delhi Capitals!
Salt single handedly defeated RCB [AP Photos]
Two moments of Phil Salt’s career, to speak more specifically, earned him rich praise early on his career and his, it ought to be noted, is a career that still is in its nascent stages.
Earlier in 2019, his clear ball striking talent for Sussex in what was a promising season attracted the attention of global T20 leagues.
He was, as he still is, freely expressing himself and appeared a brave lad that had a few things to say with the cricket bat in hand.
Salt's rise as a cricketer
In the years that followed, the right hander struck a mesmerising 58-ball-hundred for England against Ireland in a warm-up game that was held at the Ageas Ball.
This was a highlighting moment of a kind that made close witnesses of English cricket sit back and take not of a cricketer who actually gave up his other sporting passion to pursue cricket: football.
And while that scintillating century on its own should have rightly merited selection into the national English side, Phil Salt, instead of feeling salty about the lost chance, returned to some big hitting for his Sussex again.
In between these moments of reckoning, Salt had topped the run charts in the Blast and notched up two more Championship hundreds.
At a time where, England still had Eoin Morgan with the troika of Stokes, Root and Malan being avid run scorers in the white ball arena, having Phil Salt in England’s national colours would’ve further packed a punch.
But there are those who dwell on bygones and then the rest who pick whatever opportunities come their way with both hands.
In the seasons that followed, big whacking for the Barbados Tridents and Lahore Qalandars kept Phil Salt busy and made him travel from the Caribbean to the Indian sub-continent in Pakistan.
One felt that an IPL call was on the cards. And what do we see now, albeit after a few years lost in trying but in never giving up?
Just a few hours back, it was Phil Salt in a contest featuring big names- Faf, Virat, Maxwell, Warner and Marsh- who struck the most runs and that too, in a winning cause.
After a minor hiccup that resulted in a first ball duck against the Gujarat Titans, Phil Salt returned to his fierce ways of striking the white ball; his match winning inning of 87 enabled Delhi to rule in Delhi.
A sight that delighted not just the home fans of an IPL unit that hardly plays consistently well but even the English fans watching back home who have tremendous faith in the abilities of a fearless cricketer.
On a day that witnessed heaps of runs being scored in Delhi, the short boundaries appeared even shorter as Salt left little to the imagination.
What was just his second half century featured no fewer than six sixes, a knock that came at an astronomical strike rate north of 193.
Salt will hold the key for DC
In some ways, the Delhi unit couldn’t be gladder that Salt is coming to the party especially with the tournament now in its business end.
If one were to gauge the true impact of the brilliant fifty by the left hander, then it suffices to say that at the back of one knock, Delhi have now risen to ninth on the tables having thus far been the horrid bottom dwellers.
But there are more gains to take from the successful outing against Bangalore; one can’t always count on David Warner or Sarfaraz Khan or even Axar Patel to get the team going.
As it is, Mitchell Marsh has hardly looked the part of the batsman he usually is.
Against that narrative, Phil Salt, capitalising on a batting friendly surface rubbed the salt on the wounds of a team that, of lately, has made headlines for more dramatic on field skirmishes than for excellence on the playing field.
At 26, Salt has fitness and form in his side. Given he’s hardly just begun his Indian Premier League and with much gusto is a sign of good things to come. Even though that means having to do so much in the games up ahead with so little time left for Delhi in the series.
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