Delhi Capitals (DC) captain David Warner said that he wants the young batters in the franchise to learn to play express pace bowling and short pitch deliveries on their own, after his team’s first victory in IPL 2023, which came against Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) on Thursday.
Warner scored a brilliant half-century as DC huffed and puffed their way to chase a 128-run target after brilliant bowling from their side restricted KKR to just 127 runs. While the skipper, who is DC's leading run-scorer with 285 from six games, hit his 4th half-century in IPL 2023, the youngsters struggled against express pace and even spin.
Prithvi Shaw (47 from 6 games), Sarfaraz Khan (34 from 2 games), Yash Dhull (3 from 2 games), Aman Khan (30 from 4), Abhishek Porel (33 from 4 games) have had issues against pace and spin and have cut a sorry figure.
"To be honest, we don't have too many discussions as you have to back your skills and I can't tell people how to bat. You have to work it out. If you have to face fast bowling and guys who are bowling 150 kmph, you got to have technique and method to score. If they keep coming at you and bowl into your rib cage, you have to find a way how to score and if you can get one boundary, then they will start bowling into your areas,” said Warner in the press conference.
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Warner gave an interesting theory about playing the short ball.
"In the nets, it is very difficult to practice (short-pitched bowling), and even in Australia we don't practice playing short balls. It's my feeling that if you practice short ball all the time in the nets, you become tentative in the match. It's a reaction skill you have to remember. The bowler gets to bowl only one (short ball) max per over. That's a good thing for batters,” he added.
With a strike rate of around 116 in his five previous games and his 57 off 41 balls Warner gave a glimpse of the batter everyone pays to watch.
Asked what changed in his approach in the KKR game, the skipper said: "It's just that we didn't lose three wickets in a row. There have been a lot of critics out there who have suggested that I haven't been batting the way I normally bat but when you lose three wickets in a row in two overs and I have just faced three balls, what can you do?
You got to have some sense of responsibility. Today, I felt my match-ups were there and I felt I can take on bowlers in PP and we didn't lose wickets in clumps in the first two overs. So that plays a big role as well."
Warner also lauded veteran India pacer Ishant Sharma, who picked 2/19 in his 4 overs in his first match in IPL for quite some time.
"He was sick before the last game, where he was probably going to be playing. That was unfortunate as he had a bit of a fever and he couldn't play. After the first game we played, it swung and seamed he was going to be in contention to play other thing we need to think is Khaleel Ahmed, who is a very good new ball bowler.
With Khaleel out, Ishant came in and bowled exceptionally well. We have to have a good hard think about what team we are going to go if Khaleel is fit. Credit to Ishant that he came out bed with his sickness and he bowled exceptionally well and that's the depth we have with our bowling,” Warner said.
DC now have some time to rest as they will next face SRH in Hyderabad on April 24.
(PTI inputs)
