By Ricky Ponting, the head coach of Delhi Capitals, expressed his dissatisfaction with their bowling performance following their 106-run loss to Kolkata Knight Riders in Visakhapatnam. Ponting described their performance as “unacceptable” and admitted feeling embarrassed. Kolkata Knight Riders registered the second-highest total in IPL history – 272/7 – which led to Rishabh Pant being fined INR 24 Lakhs for the Capitals’ second over-rate offence this season. Ponting emphasized the need to quickly address their shortcomings.
“It’s pretty hard to assess right now,” Ponting said at the post-match press conference. “I mean I was almost embarrassed with our first half of the game today. 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.”
Ponting Voices Discomfort with Delhi Capitals
Ponting also addressed the issue of skipper Pant not taking the review on a couple of occasions. He mentioned that he hadn’t had a chance to discuss it with Pant yet, but emphasized that there were other bigger concerns such as the over-rate and the bowling performance.
“We can’t afford to do that, no other team is doing that,” Ponting said. “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.”
Regarding the performance in the powerplay, where 88 runs were scored, Ponting admitted that it didn’t help their cause. He praised the youngster Angkrish Raghuvanshi for his performance but stressed the need for self-criticism and improvement for the next game.
