The Delhi Capitals head coach Ricky Ponting was unhappy with his side’s dismal performance against the Kolkata Knight Riders in their second home game in Visakhapatnam where the hosts suffered a massive defeat by 106 runs. The former Australian skipper had labelled the performance as ‘unacceptable and embarrassing’.
DC was extremely poor with the ball as they helped KKR set up the second-highest target in IPL history with a score of 273 runs needed to chase in the second innings of the game.
Speaking at the post-match press conference, Ponting said,” It’s pretty hard to assess right now. I mean I was almost embarrassed with our first half of the game today”.
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The coach was not pleased with the sides’ first innings performance having conceded way too many extras and also maintaining a slow over-rate in the process as well.
He added,” 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 the last two overs only get to bowl with four fieldsmen outside the circle”.
READ MORE: IPL 2024: Rishabh Pant Nearing One-match Ban as BCCI Fine DC Skipper Again for Maintaining Slow Over Rate
The three-time World Cup winner remains intent on turning the fortunes of the side and mentioned that there will be discussions within the dressing room on what needs to change.
“A lot of things happened in this game that were unacceptable and a lot of things we will talk about 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 said.
Another big concern was Rishabh Pant not going for the DRS review on multiple occasions which allowed KKR’s opening batter to go on a rampage as he finished with a score of 85 from 39 deliveries to earn the Player of the Match award.
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Batting on 24, Ishant Sharma was confident that Narine had nicked a delivery but Pant was too late in calling for the DRS review. It was later shown in the replays that there was indeed an edge which could have dismissed the batter and turn the game in their favour. But Ponting sees that as minor errors and sees the side having bigger problems to deal with like the slow over-rate.
The coach said, “I haven’t had a chance to talk to Rishabh about those. I mean, 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,” he added.
The coach believes that the side cannot afford to be penalised for the slow over-rate, something the side has been fined for in the last two games consecutively, which means that the skipper is on the verge of facing a one-match ban as well in the event of a third offence.
Ponting highlighted, “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”.
The Delhi Capitals will be on the road once again as they head to the Wankhede Stadium in Mumbai where they take on Hardik Pandya’s Mumbai Indians in their third away fixture of the season.
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