Delhi's Ranji debutant Sarang Rawat shuns helmet against Vidarbha pacers

New Delhi: Even as the cricket fraternity is still coming to terms with Phillip Hughes' on-field death and talking about improving quality of protective head gear, Delhi's Ranji Trophy debutant Sarang Rawat stunned everyone by choosing to wear a cap against Vidarbha's pace bowlers.

His act, however, did not amuse his coach Vijay Dahiya, who termed it as something which was "not a clever thing to do".

The 19-year-old Sarang, whose 42 went a long way in Delhi getting the first innings lead, came out wearing a helmet as Delhi's 8th wicket fell in the 87th over.

But to everyone's dismay, he immediately called the substitute fielder and gave away his helmet, wearing a normal cap as he faced pacer Ravi Thakur. For the next nine overs, he continued wearing a cap against Thakur, Shrikant Wagh and Swapnil Bandiwar.

"Actually, Sarang loves to hook and pull. He thought that wearing a cap would force the Vidarbha bowlers to dig it in and he can make most of short balls," Delhi's Pradeep Sangwan said after the day's play.

But in the post lunch session, Sarang was seen wearing a helmet on the instructions of coach Dahiya.

"I don't think it was a very clever thing to do. I told him that Vidarbha pacers might not get it to rear it upto his face with their pace but it may well happen that a delivery kicks up enough and takes off hitting the handle off his bat upto his face. I told him to wear the helmet," Dahiya told PTI on Saturday.

Certainly an act of bravado that did not go down well with the coach.

Ironically, Sarang was out trying to fend a short ball when he was wearing a helmet.

To this Sangwan laughed and said, "Then his plan changed and it failed."