Delhi Capitals (DC) head coach Ricky Ponting criticized the team over their poor performance in the IPL 2024 game against the Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) at the ACA-VDCA Cricket Stadium in Visakhapatnam on Wednesday, April 3. The Aussie legend said that he was almost embarrassed by DC’s bowling performance on the day. KKR hammered DC by 106 runs in Match 16 of IPL 2024 on Wednesday in Visakhapatnam.
Kolkata Knight Riders posted a mammoth total
Batting first after winning the toss, Kolkata notched up 272-7, the second-highest total in IPL history. In response, Delhi were bowled out for 166 in 17.2 overs. At the post-match press conference, Ponting was extremely critical of DC over their insipid all-round show.
He was embarrassed by the team’s performance
“I was almost embarrassed with our first half of the game today – to concede that many runs. It took us two hours as well to bowl our overs, so we were two overs behind again, which means the guys bowling the last two overs only get to bowl with four fielders outside the circle,” Ponting candidly admitted. “There are a lot of things that happened in this game that are unacceptable; we have to fix [them] immediately to go forward in this tournament,” the former Australian captain went on to add.
Sunil Narine and Angkrish Raghuvanshi scored fifties for KKR
Sunil Narine top-scored for KKR with 85 off 39, while Angkrish Raghuvanshi contributed 54 off 27 in his maiden IPL innings. He was very calm in his first innings. Showed variety range of shots, everyone was very impressed by this young lad. Andre Russell chipped in with a quick-fire 41 off 19, whole Rinku Singh slammed 26 off eight. For DC, Anrich Nortje registered figures of 3-59 in four overs, while Ishant Sharma claimed 2-43 in three overs. “They were relentless” – Ponting concedes KKR were too good for DC on the day.
Delhi needs improvement in many areas : Ponting
Asked what went wrong for the Delhi Capitals against Kolkata, the head coach admitted that the team needs to improve significantly in many areas. He, however, pointed out that DC’s poor start with the ball set them back in a big way, making it extremely difficult for them to make a comeback. “They got off to a flying start in the powerplay. They were around 90 after six overs. “That phase is not ideal; if that happens at the start of the game, then you are always trying to find your way back into the game and they didn’t allow us to do that today. They were relentless. We’ve got to be very critical on ourselves,” Ponting commented.
Pant and Stubbs played good innings
For Delhi only positive things were Rishabh Pant and Tristan Stubbs scoring fifties. Both the batters played good knock. Rishabh will be feeling very confident now as he scored back to back half centuries since his comeback. Delhi Capitals’ next match in IPL 2024 will be against the Mumbai Indians at the Wankhede in Mumbai on April 7.
Kevin Varchand