Delhi Capitals (DC) lost the chance of making it to their consecutive Indian Premier League (IPL) finals after the three-wicket defeat to Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) in a thrilling encounter in the second qualifier at the Sharjah Cricket Stadium.
DC head coach Ricky Ponting, post the team’s emotional departure from the tournament, pointed out the reasons for Delhi’s defeat during the post-match press conference.
“I think the powerplays in both innings was probably the difference in the game. I don’t think we got enough in our powerplay with the bat. I think we were 37 (sic) at the end of our powerplay, which is probably, you know, 8 to 10 runs short of where we wanted to be and what the sort of par score is on this sort of wicket,” the former Australian skipper said.
The head coach was also seen defending the team’s decision to send Marcus Stoinis up in the order at No.3. Stoinis, who came back from a hamstring injury could only score 18 off 23 balls.
“We thought long and hard about where Marcus’s best bet would be the batting order for us today. I mean, as we all are aware, he missed about three weeks with a hamstring injury, so he hadn’t played any cricket. We desperately wanted him back into the team today because we knew he could bat at the top of the order and bat down at the death if required. As you saw today, with that type of pitch, it’s really difficult for any new batsman to come in and start on. Even Shikhar at the top didn’t get away to the flier that we were after. Middle-order players, Indian players even struggled to get going on that surface. So, I think it was the right decision. We probably didn’t get the outcome that we were after, though,” Ponting added.
Without mincing words, the Australian legend said that his team was simply “outplayed” by Eoin Morgan’s men.
“We didn’t bat well enough today, we didn’t get enough runs in the powerplay, we lost wickets too regularly through the middle of our batting innings. If it wasn’t for Hetmyer and Shreyas at the end, we weren’t looking anywhere near 130 odd, so we’ve been outplayed and we’ll talk about that when we make it back into the rooms after. It’s disappointing for us certainly to finish the way that we have,” Ponting said on Delhi’s batting collapse.
The 46-year-old also defended Pant’s decision to give Anrich Nortje just one over in the first 10 overs.
“We wanted to have Nortje through the middle overs. Some of the batsmen in the middle we feel, are probably a little bit susceptible to good quality fast bowling, so we wanted to save a couple for him through the middle and one at the end. So we’re running tactically tonight. I think Rishabh did a really, really good job. We didn’t get enough runs and we did a good job to claw our way back into the game and give ourselves a chance to win going into the last two overs,” the coach backed the captain’s decision.
Pant used five different bowlers in the powerplay overs and DC ended up conceding 51 runs from it. Elaborating on Pant’s plan on juggling the bowlers, Ponting said, “I think the captain was looking at trying a few different options to get a wicket in the powerplay. And then we wanted to be able to use a couple of overs of spin in the powerplay before the ball got too well and basically difficult for the spinners to hang on to it too much. And it’s a technique you can use, not let the batter get settled against one type of bowler.”
