Ricky Ponting at press conference© BCCI/Sportzpics
After the 106-run defeat against Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) in the Indian Premier League (IPL) match, Delhi Capitals (DC) head coach Ricky Ponting said he was embarrassed by the first half of his team’s match and by the way his team had conceded. too many runs while bowling at a slow pace. Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) produced a remarkable performance in all facets of the match against Delhi Capitals in the ongoing Indian Premier League (IPL) 2024 at the ACA-VDCA Cricket Stadium in Visakhapatnam on Wednesday.
After the match, in the post-match press conference, Ponting said: “I was almost embarrassed by our first half of the match today – to concede so many points. It also took us two hours to bowl our overs, so there were two of us.” the overs are still behind, meaning the guys bowling the last two overs can only play with four fielders outside the circle.
“There are a lot of things that happened in this match that are unacceptable; we need to address them. [them] immediately to move forward in this tournament,” added the former Australian skipper.
Ponting said KKR were relentless throughout the match.
“They got off to a good start in the power play. They made around 90 runs after six overs. This phase is not ideal; if it happens at the start of the match, then you are still trying to find your way back into the match. and they didn’t allow us to do that today. They were relentless. We have to be very critical of ourselves,” Ponting said.
DC skipper Pant scored consecutive half-centuries during the match, but during the match he called a physio while he was batting. Ponting said it might just be fatigue and he was moving pretty well at the bat.
“I saw he called a physio. Maybe it was just a little fatigue. It looked like he was moving pretty well when he was hitting. I think we should just focus on how “He hit it tonight. I didn’t see him limping. All this after I called the physio. I saw him doing a bit of stretching, so there might be a bit of cramping,” said the DC head coach.
However, the coach said that he was happy with Pant’s batting and needed a situation where he had to attack to get his confidence back.
“I’m happy for him with what he did with the bat. A situation like that, where he had to come out and attack from the start, is probably a scenario he needed just to get some confidence back .He’s actually had two good games with the bat now, which is great,” Ponting said.
Talking about captain Rishabh missing a DRS to Sunil Narine during KKR’s batting, Ponting said: “Narine was missed and then Shreyas Iyer was missed later. I’m not sure what happened there “Obviously Rishabh didn’t hear them. Other fielders and the bowlers on the field actually heard something on both occasions,” he added.
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