Delhi Capitals head coach Ricky Ponting reckons it is really hard to win if you lose three wickets in the powerplay overs. While chasing 172 runs against Gujarat Titans, Delhi Capitals were reduced to 43-3 in the powerplay overs at the Maharashtra Cricket Association Stadium, Pune on Saturday.
Hardik Pandya drew first blood for his team as he dismissed Tim Seifert in his first over whereas Lockie Ferguson accounted for Prithvi Shaw and Mandeep Singh with short-pitched deliveries.
Furthermore, Delhi Capitals lost three more wickets in the powerplay overs, which pushed them on the backfoot.
“Unfortunately for us, for the second game in a row, it was three wickets in the powerplay and been behind the eight-ball early,” he started. “I thought the way Hardik used Lockie was quite smart tonight. He used him as a strike bowler and it didn’t really surprise me with the way he bowled. We had talked about him on how he will run in and hit the wicket, used his short ball really well and picked up four wickets. A few too many soft dismissals from our batters and we weren’t able to get the job done.
“We did have the game in hand but if you lose three wickets in the powerplay, it’s really hard to win games. That’s certainly one area we need to get better at. Getting through that powerplay none or one down would be a nice start to the run chase.”
Ponting added that it was a disappointing loss as the required run rate never went off out of hand. DC were right in the game but they kept losing wickets at regular intervals and the 15th over was the turning point of the game in which Lockie Ferguson took two wickets.
“There was a little bit of panic. At no stage did the asking rate get out of hand and that’s what makes it a bit of a disappointing loss,” Ponting pointed out. “We went down by 15 runs but the run rate never really went above nine and a half runs per over. We had Pant in the middle of a good innings, Powell had just gone out – if they were able to bat through 2-3 more overs, we would have won the game.”
It was an under-par score and Delhi Capitals would have disappointed to fall short by 14 runs. Delhi Capitals will next face Lucknow Super Giants on Thursday at the Dr. DY Patil Sports Academy.
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