Lot of things happened in this game that were unacceptable: Ricky Ponting

The Delhi Capitals head coach Ricky Ponting was in no mood to mince his words after his team put up a poor performance at Vizag against the Kolkata Knight Riders, who first scored the second-highest total in IPL history (272/7) and then cleaned up the Capitals for just 166 runs. 

This was a game full of mistakes from the Capitals. Still, amidst the plethora of errors that were committed, the two missed DRS reviews and the second consecutive slow over-rate offence on their skipper, Rishabh Pant, became the major talking points from the game. 

Despite trying hard to point out that these were just a few small mistakes amidst the many that Delhi made on the day, Ponting’s frustration showed through as he called such a performance “unacceptable”. 

“A lot of things happened in this game that were unacceptable, and there are a lot of things we will talk about as a group tonight that we have to fix immediately going forward in the competition.”

“There will be some good open discussions in the changing room for sure,” the former Australian captain said. 

Ponting was especially stern about DC taking two hours to complete their quota of 20 overs, which implied that they were behind the over rate and had to field an extra fielder in the infield for the last two overs. A similar delay happened at Vizag in the game against Chennai Super Kings on March 31. 

One more such instance can land skipper Rishabh Pant a one-match ban; meanwhile, he has already been fined INR 24 Lakhs for slow 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, which is more than 10 minutes down going into the last couple of overs of 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.”

Ponting was also asked in the press conference about the two reviews missed by Rishabh Pant, but he underplayed the impact of those two decisions in the larger scheme of things. Pant was late to take the DRS once against Sunil Narine when he was at 24 and had edged Ishant Sharma, and then he didn’t opt for one when Rasikh Dar managed to nick Shreyas Iyer in the 15th over. 

“I haven't had a chance to talk to Rishabh about those [reviews]. 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, these 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.”

Ponting also praised Angkrish Raghuvanshi and Sunil Narine, who scored 139 runs combined on just 66 deliveries and took the game away from Delhi’s grasp. 

 “The start didn't help. Even thinking about the first ball of the game. They [KKR] got off to a flying start in the powerplay; they were 90 at the end of the 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,” Ponting said. 

“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 kept going hard. They did lots of things well, but we have to be critical of ourselves and our own performances and look at ways to get better for the next game.”

The Delhi Capitals play the Mumbai Indians next, on April 7 in Mumbai.