Delhi Camp got hit by the sixth positive case on the morning of the game which created a lot of confusion and nervousness in the team but they made a conscious effort to shut down the incoming voices and purely focused on the game.
A sixth positive case in Delhi Capitals raised a lot of confusion and nervousness on the morning of the game but the team collectively made a conscious effort to shut down the outside voices and focus on their game, said the DC skipper Rishabh Pant after their nine-wicket victory over Punjab Kings.
The clouds of getting cancelled over the IPL game were lifted just an hour before the toss after a confirmation from the BCCI that the match will go on despite a sixth consecutive Covid positive case being reported in the Delhi camp on the game day.
“There was a lot of confusion because we learnt of the positive test in the morning (Tim Seifert). We were a bit nervous and there were talks of the game getting cancelled. But we spoke as a team that we must purely focus on the match,”
Pant said at the post-match presentation.
David Warner and Prithvi Shaw lifted the game from the first ball to fire the team to fire their team towards a big win after a brilliant bowling effort that restricted Punjab Kings to 115.
The skipper says that he never tried to give the duo any unsolicited advice.
“Mostly, I like to leave them (Warner and Shaw) alone because they know their roles. Delhi Capitals has to go through every game. Results are not in our control, but we have to give everything in our games.
“On a wicket like this, after one or two overs, I saw the ball was stopping a bit and I thought I should use more spin. I thought 150 would be a good enough score to stop them at,”
said Pant.
For Punjab Kings, it was no less than a nightmare.
“It is a tough one. We did not bat or bowl well; we have to put this behind us. Losing too many wickets too early, but I do not want to dig too deep as the more we do it, the more negatives that will come out. 180 was a decent score but we were well short of that. In hindsight, I could have given the spinners an over or two but did not at the time,”
said skipper Mayank Agarwal.
Brief Scores: Delhi Capitals 119/1 (David Warner 60*, Prithvi Shaw 41; Rahul Chahar 1-21) beat Punjab Kings 115 (Jitesh Sharma 32, Mayank Agarwal 24; Axar Patel 2-10) by 9 wickets.