Mumbai: Delhi Capitals head coach Ricky Ponting pointed out where Delhi Capitals went wrong in the game against Rajasthan Royals on Thursday. Calling it a ‘mistake’ on captain Rishabh Pant’s behalf by not letting off-spinner Ravichandran Ashwin complete his full quota of four overs and instead give an over to medium pacer Marcus Stoinis.
Ashwin bowled three overs on the trot in his first and conceded just 14 runs and no boundaries in his three overs while defending the 148-run target. “That’s certainly something that we will talk about when I get a chance to sit down with the team,” Ponting said in the post match press conference.
The former Australian skipper also revealed that the senior off-spinner had worked really hard in the last couple of days after having an off day in Delhi’s first IPL match against Punjab Kings.
“He had bowled beautifully. Three overs, none for 14. Hadn’t even conceded a boundary. Look he had a disappointing game in game one, but he has worked really hard in the last few days to make sure he adjusted and got things right in this game. I thought he bowled beautifully tonight. Probably a mistake on our behalf, and something we will be talking about later on,” Ponting added.
Ponting also stated that Delhi bowled at lengths which were easy to pick for Chris Morris, who smashed 4 sixes in his 18-ball. Ponting said that plans against the hard-hitting all-rounder were not executed properly.
“We probably gave him a few too many easy balls, a few too many slot balls if you like,” Ponting said. “The length wasn’t quite where it needed to be. If you look at the replay of the game, if you bowled a reasonable yorker, he didn’t score off them. If it was back of a length, sort of, above stump high, he didn’t get hold of them either, especially with pace on the ball. We talked about how to bowl to him, but the execution probably wasn’t there,”
he signed off.
