Delhi Capitals are still waiting for their first win of the IPL 2024 season.
While the defending champions are coming into this game on the back of two successive wins, the Capitals are still waiting for their first win of the season. The Rishabh Pant-led side lost to Punjab Kings and Rajasthan Royals in the first two matches.
Ahead of the CSK clash, DC head coach Ricky Ponting expressed confidence in a turnaround. He aims to inspire the team to exhibit their "best cricket" throughout the entire 40 overs against the table-toppers.
"We had a couple of chats about our cricket and the consensus out of those meetings is that we have played some really good and bad cricket. So, we need to find somewhere in the middle where we can play consistently good cricket over 40 overs," Ponting said on Saturday in his pre-match press meet.
"We could have easily won both our first games, with Ishant going down in the first game didn't really help and the other day we went for a few more runs in the bowling innings of that match.
"However, we are very confident that we're going to be able to turn things around against a good CSK team, but it's just a matter of us playing our best cricket for 40 overs," he added.
Talking about the strategy moving forward, Ponting called for a more assertive approach from his team.
"It's not a short tournament, it's quite a long tournament, but by saying that, you would prefer to get off to a good start than get off to a slow start. We have still got 12 games to play.
"I'm pretty sure we'll have a more positive intent going into this game, we'll be a lot more aggressive in this game than we've been in the first couple of games, and I think if we take the right attitude into this game then we can definitely win."
When asked about playing two home matches in Visakhapatnam, the Australian legend said, "This is our second home for this tournament, this is not a neutral venue by any chance. We have got our first two games here and we want to make sure that this is a place that we can win."
(With PTI inputs)