Follow UsThree finals, three losses. That has been the story of Delhi Capitals (DC) in the Women's Premier League (WPL) as they succumbed to an eight-run defeat against Mumbai Indians (MI) in the final in Mumbai on March 16 (Sunday).
However, their head coach, Jonathan Batty, says that the team did not carry any baggage from the previous final losses going into this one.
"The girls have been really positive. I can't fault them. There has been no negative talk at all like 'Oh we've messed up the last two finals, we're going to take that baggage into this one', none of that. I thought they were really positive, really confident. The girls have been fantastic, they trained superbly," Batty said after the match.
"I don't think there is a mental block at all. If you look at the way we performed with the ball, we did a great job to keep them to 149 on that wicket. We have seen what had happened in the elimination game and the other games here. We were expecting 180 to be a par score, so we were really happy with that. The players were ready for it, so I don't think there was a mental block at all."
Given that we have witnessed high-scoring games at the Brabourne this season, DC did very well to restrict MI to just 149. This despite the 89-run partnership between Harmanpreet Kaur (66) and Nat Sciver-Brunt (30) that threatened to push the total to 160-170.
"Everyone's hurting a huge amount at the moment. I think 99 percent of the time, you back yourself to chase 150 on that wicket there today. Big match finals, maybe the occasion just got to the players, but full credit to Mumbai Indians for the way they defended that total." Batty said.
"They made it really hard for u,s and we were never ahead in the chase. We were in the game all the way through, just couldn't get over the line.
"With players like Harmanpreet and Nat Sciver-Brunt, a lot of planning went into it, and I thought we actually kept them calm for a while there, especially Sciver-Brunt. She had a great tournament, scoring over 500 runs, so we have been planning about her and executed them really well today.
"Harmanpreet was fantastic. Her innings were probably the difference between the two teams today."
Meg Lanning, who has made a habit of winning trophies at the international level, is yet to get her hands on the WPL trophy despite getting close thrice. While lauding Lanning's role in the team, he feels it is too early for a post-mortem as they team are still recovering from the loss.
"She is thriving in the captaincy and leadership role again. She played some good knocks in the tournament and led a really good group of players for three years," the 50-year-old said.
"We're all hurting. It's going to take some time to think through what went wrong and that's cricket as well. You've got two great quality teams going head-to-head, and it was such a tight game. You lose by eight runs, which is two boundaries. We lost that by two balls in the end. It can go either way. I don't think there was a common denominator [in the three finals].
"There will be a winning side and a losing side. We've been on the losing side three times, unfortunately."