Delhi Capitals coach Ricky Ponting said he felt “almost embarrassed” by the “unacceptable” bowling and fielding performance. His side put in against Kolkata Knight Riders in Visakhapatnam, as they lost by 106 runs after conceding the second-highest total in IPL history.
The Capitals twice failed to review not-out-caught-behind decisions. That would have been overturned, but Ponting said they had bigger problems to worry about.
Ricky Ponting’s Strong Words After DC’s Defeat
“It’s pretty hard to assess right now,” Ponting said. “I mean, I was almost embarrassed with our first half of the game today, to concede that many runs. I think we bowled 17 wides and it took us two hours to bowl the overs. We were two overs behind again, which means the guys bowling the last two overs only got to bowl with four fieldsmen outside the circle.
“There are a lot of things that happened today in this game that are unacceptable. And there’s a lot of things that we’ll talk about as a group tonight that we have to fix immediately to go forward in this tournament.
“There will be some good open discussions in the change-rooms tonight, for sure… There are no excuses from our side whatsoever. We’ve been outplayed and outplayed badly. We need to go back and have a good talk about where we went wrong today.”
Ponting pointed out it was the second time they overshot the bowling time and while KKR were anyway going to post 250-plus on the night, it could cost them dearly in future matches if they can’t correct it.
“A lot of things happened in this game that were unacceptable and a lot of things we will talk about as a group tonight that we have about o fix immediately to go forward in the competition. There will be some good open discussions in the changing room for sure,” Ponting added.
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‘Bigger Concerns’ of Ricky Ponting
“There were two (missed reviews), Narine was missed and then Shreyas Iyer was missed later on. I am not sure what happened there. Rishabh had not heard them. Other fielders and bowlers on the ground actually heard something on both occasions. Look at the end of the day, they are little things and there are bigger concerns for us,” Ponting said.
The Aussie also conceded that KKR were relentless after the start they got, reserving special mention for 18-year-old Angkrish Raghuvanshi, and DC was never able to pull it back.
“They got off to a flying start in the powerplay. They were around 90 runs after six overs (88/1). That phase is not ideal; if that happens at the start of the game, then you are always trying to fight your way back into the game and they did not allow us to do that today.
They were relentless, they kept going at us. I thought the youngster at No.3 played well and that allowed Russ and all those guys to play the way they always play. And they had wickets in hand, so they could keep going hard. They did lots of things well but we’ve got to be critical of ourselves, on our performances, and we got to look at ways to get better for the next game.”
Dehli Capitals’s heavy defeat damaged their Net Run Rate and they currently find themselves ninth on the points table. They next take on fellow strugglers Mumbai Indians on Sunday at the Wankhede Stadium.
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