Ricky Ponting used the terms unacceptable and humiliated to characterize the Delhi Capitals’ bowling performance during their 106-run loss to Kolkata Knight Riders in Visakhapatnam..
On a day when the Knight Riders scored the second highest total in the IPL – 272/7 – Rishabh Pant was fined INR 24 lakhs for the Capitals’ second-over-rate penalty of the season, and head coach Ponting attempted to rapidly address their weaknesses
“It’s pretty hard to assess right now. I mean I was almost embarrassed with our first half of the game today,” said Ponting at the post-match press conference. “To concede that many runs…we bowled 17 wides and it took us two hours to bowl our overs as well, so we were two overs behind again, which means the guys bowling last two overs only get to bowl with four fieldsmen outside the circle.
“Lot of things happened in this game that were unacceptable and a lot of things we will talk as a group tonight that we have to fix immediately to go forward in the competition. There will be some good open discussions in the changing room for sure.”
It didn’t help the Capitals that skipper Pant failed to take the review on several occasions. The first time occurred in the fourth over, off the fourth delivery from Ishant Sharma, who was convinced Narine (batting at 24 at the time) had edged the ball. Pant, however, was too late to warn the umpire because time had run out. Narine scored 26 in that over and went on to hit a 39-ball 85, laying the groundwork for the Knight Riders’ enormous score. Shreyas Iyer was batting on three when Rasikh Salam thought he had caught him behind in the 15th over, but Pant again chose not to review.
“I haven’t had a chance to talk to Rishabh about those. I mean, obviously, Rishabh hasn’t heard them, other fielders and bowlers did hear something on both occasions. But look, at the end of the day, they are little things. There are other bigger concerns for us with the way we bowled, some of the field placings we had set and just how long it’s taking us to get around,” said Ponting, who was more critical of the over-rate.
“We can’t afford to do that, no other team is doing that. We have been two overs down two games in a row, that’s more than 10 minutes down going into the last couple of overs of a bowling innings. It probably didn’t cost us today because they’d have gotten 250 anyway but going forward in the tournament, it will definitely cost us something if we can’t fix it.”
The powerplay produced up to 88 runs, laying the groundwork for the Knight Riders. Ponting stated that after the kind of start they had, it was simply about limiting the damage for the rest of the innings, which the Capitals failed to do.
“The start didn’t help. Even thinking about the first ball of the game. They got off to a flying start in the powerplay, they were 90 maybe at the end of first six overs. So that phase is not ideal. If that happens at the start of a game, you are always trying to fight your way back into the game. They didn’t allow us to do that today. They were relentless, the way they kept going at us after that start.
“I thought the youngster at No.3 (Angkrish Raghuvanshi) played really well and that allowed Russ (Andre Russell) and all those guys to play the way they always play. And they had wickets in hand, so they can keep going hard. They did lots of things really well but we got to be really critical of ourselves, on our own performances, and we got to look at ways to get better for the next game,” Ponting said.
