In the opening clash of DC in the IPL 2022, they were 46/3 within the powerplay while chasing 177 and the same issue came in their next match when they slipped to 43/3 against Gujrat Titans.
In the opening clash of DC in the IPL 2022, they were 46/3 within the powerplay while chasing 177. They managed to win the match from behind against Mumbai Indians and the same issue came in their next match when they slipped to 43/3 against Gujrat Titans and eventually ended up 15 runs short in Pune.
Tim Seifert has had scores of 21 and 3 in the two games, Mandeep Singh hasn’t got any luck and Prithvi Shaw fell cheaply in the second game after showing some promise in the first. So it wasn’t a surprise when the DC head coach Ricky Ponting pointed to the reason for their loss in the two games as the opening six overs.
“Unfortunately for us, for the second game in a row, it was three wickets in the powerplay and been behind the eight-ball early,”
he started.
“I thought the way Hardik used Lockie was quite smart tonight. He used him as a strike bowler and it didn’t really surprise me with the way he bowled. We had talked about him and how he will run in and hit the wicket, used his short ball really well, and picked up four wickets. A few too many soft dismissals from our batters and we weren’t able to get the job done.
“We did have the game in hand but if you lose three wickets in the powerplay, it’s really hard to win games. That’s certainly one area we need to get better at. Getting through that powerplay none or one down would be a nice start to the run chase.”
DC still managed to chase pretty well against GT with Rishabh Pant and Lalit Yadav controlling the game from the end and doing the rebuilding job. They had the game in hand, at one stage, with Pant and Rovman Powell coming out in the middle before the panic started.
“There was a little bit of panic. At no stage did the asking rate get out of hand and that’s what makes it a bit of a disappointing loss,”
Ponting pointed out.
“We went down by 15 runs but the run rate never really went above nine and a half runs per over. We had Pant in the middle of good innings, Powell had just gone out – if they were able to bat through 2-3 more overs, we would have won the game.”
Ponting isn’t too disappointed, with Mitchell Marsh progressing well in the league and Anrich Nortje also bowling his best at the nets. He has, however, his plans set for the next few days and has a bit of homework for Prithvi Shaw.
“He played beautifully in the first game. He didn’t go on and capitalize as he would have liked but because of the start we were good enough to win Game 1,”
the coach said.
“Today, Ferguson comes into the attack and gets Shaw out exactly the way they would have talked about. We will have a chat with him – he’s been out twice playing the pull shot – so we have to do a bit of work to do with him in the next few days.”