Delhi Capitals head coach Ricky Ponting admitted that his team has got to do more soul-searching after losing their third consecutive game of IPL 2023 by 57 runs to the Rajasthan Royals at the Barsapara Cricket Ground.
In the match, Delhi's bowlers allowed Rajasthan to post 199/4, before the batters couldn't stand and made only 142/9 in their 20 overs.
"We are a long way off right now. I can't put my finger on why because I watch these boys train and prepare. Their work has been really good, their training has been great, but it hasn't come across in terms of results yet on the field.
If I could put my finger on it, I'd do something to change it. We need to do some more soul-searching as a group and talk about it. I'll just let the guys have a think about it. We may address it the next day, but we need to turn it around pretty quickly. Three games in and no wins, you can't afford to get off to bad starts in the IPL," said Ponting in the post-match press conference.
In Saturday's game, the opening over encapsulated the gulf in quality between Delhi and Rajasthan. Yashasvi Jaiswal showed his full range of shots by hitting Khaleel Ahmed for five fours to be 20/0 in the opening over. With the ball, Trent Boult took out impact player Prithvi Shaw and Manish Pandey on back-to-back balls to leave Delhi at 0/2 in their opening over.
"In the first two games, we sort of got to none for 40 early on and then lost wickets in the back part of the powerplay. Here, it was completely different. We were two down in the first over and you let your back to the wall from there," added Ponting.
In the tournament, Delhi have been fragile with the bat and lacked penetration as a bowling unit, leading to them not clicking as a unit and crashing to three straight losses. Their next game, against Mumbai Indians at the Arun Jaitley Stadium on Tuesday, serves as a pivotal clash for David Warner & Co to bring their campaign back on track.
"You look at that aspect of our game, you look at our first two overs with the ball, they were none for 32 with eight fours and nothing else, it says our execution with the ball was way below what it needs to be. So, if you look at the first two overs of our bowling innings and first two overs of our batting innings, you put those together and it's very hard to win games of cricket," concluded Ponting.
