Delhi Capitals (DC) head coach Ricky Ponting felt that the qualifier two loss to Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) was the only match in the ongoing IPL 2021 in which his team was outplayed. He also said that though his franchise may be allowed to retain only a handful of players ahead of the IPL 2022 mega auction, he would want all the players for the next season.
"I'd love to keep everyone. To be honest, we have got... it is a terrific group of people at the Delhi Capitals, playing staff and the coaches have done an amazing job for the last couple of seasons. And I think our performances sort of speak for themselves there,” Ponting said.
“We're just disappointed that this season has finished the way that it has. But yeah, so obviously we know that we will probably only be able to retain maybe three or four players. So, a lot of players will go back into the auction, and then I'll be doing everything I can certainly to bring as many people back into the Delhi Capitals family as possible, because as I said, it's been incredibly enjoyable, for the last three seasons, really for me. To bring everyone or most of the guys back together again, will be certainly a goal of mine," the former Australian skipper said.
DC was put in to bat first by KKR who won the toss and managed just 135/5 in 20 overs and Ponting cited this lack of runs as the biggest factor in the team's defeat, saying the power-play was the difference.
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"To be totally honest, looking back at this whole season, I think today really is the only game that I feel we have been outplayed in. We didn't bat well enough today, we didn't get enough runs in the power-play, we lost wickets regularly through the middle of our batting innings,” Ponting said at the post-match press conference on Wednesday night.
KKR’s chase was on course after their openers added 96 runs in 13 overs. In the end, they needed 10 runs from the last two overs but Anrich Nortje removed captain Eoin Morgan (0) with the final ball of the 19th over, leaving the Knight Riders seven runs to get from the final six balls.
R Ashwin then picked two back-to-back wickets before Rahul Tripathi hit a six off R Ashwin in the fifth delivery to see his team home.
“If it wasn't for (Shimron) Hetmyer and Shreyas (Iyer) at the end, we weren't looking anywhere near 130, so we have been outplayed, so we will talk about that when we get back into the rooms after this. It is disappointing for us to certainly finish the way that we have," said the former Australian World-Cup winning skipper.
Ponting said that the power-plays in both the innings were the difference between the two sides: "Yeah. Look, I think the power-plays in both innings was probably the difference in the game. I don't think we got enough in our power play with the bat. I think we were 37 at the end of our power-play, which was probably, you know, eight to 10 runs short of where we wanted to be.”
(PTI inputs)
