“I don’t think we helped ourselves in the field,” DC Coach Ricky Ponting

Lucknow (Uttar Pradesh) [India], April 2 (ANI): Delhi Capitals Head Coach Ricky Ponting was disappointed with the performance of his team against Lucknow Super Giants during the Indian Premier League (IPL) match on Saturday which they lost by 50 runs.

After the game, Ponting held the fielding unit of DC responsible for being complacent and giving away important moments to the other team. Lucknow Super Giants (LSG) won last night’s match against Delhi Capitals (DC) with a huge margin of 50 runs. The major reason for the loss of the Delhi squad was their generic efforts on the field. Delhi’s Kyle Mayers was batting on 14 runs in 15 balls when DC fielder Khaleel Ahmed dropped a sitter in the 6th over. Later in the innings, he scored 59 off just 23 balls which gave LSG a high-scoring total of 193/6.

“To be totally honest, I think they got more runs than they probably should have, I don’t think we helped ourselves in the field today. Our fielding after the first four overs was really sloppy,” said DC coach Ponting after the match as quoted by ESPNcricinfo.

Talking about the pivotal moment of the match, when Khaleel dropped the catch of LSG batter Mayers, he added, “A couple of chances went down, a few misfields. One of those chances that went down was Mayers, who ended up going on a bit of a run after that, which put us behind the game a little bit.”

“If you do, you have to expect that they’re going to make you pay. There are a few reasons why we lost the game, and we’ll address those and hopefully improve for our next game,” Ponting continued.

Batting first, Lucknow put a winning chase of 194 in which the major role was played by Delhi’s Mayers’s half-century and a small cameo of Nicholas Pooran of 36 (21) and Ayush Badoni off 18 (7) in the last overs. Conceding 16 sixes was also the reason for the loss according to Ponting.

“Looking at the wicket today, I didn’t think it was a 190-plus wicket. There was a lot of dew there. If anything, on that wicket, it was probably better for us batting second,” Delhi Coach said.

“I think we conceded 16 sixes in our bowling innings. That goes to show that we were a fair bit off with our execution with our bowling,” Ponting continued
Praising LSG bowler Mark Wood for his performance of 5/14, Ponting said, “He bowled the way we thought he would bowl.” “We know he will run in and bowl fast; we know he will run in and attack the stumps and use his bouncer. That’s what he did,” the former Australian skipper added.