Delhi Capitals head coach Ricky Ponting with skipper Rishabh Pant during a practice session.
Rishabh Pant’s on-field decisions as Delhi Capitals captain are underway IPL The former players may have come under fire, but the wicketkeeper has the “full support” of head coach Ricky Ponting, who says “it is easier to make decisions from outside”.
Under Pant’s leadership, DC have won just five out of the 11 matches they have played so far. They suffered a 91-run defeat at the hands of Chennai Super Kings on Sunday.
Pant’s change in bowling and selection of bowlers to bowl at crucial times has been criticized by former players like Virender Sehwag. But Ponting, the former captain of Australia and Mumbai Indians, said that he fully supports every decision of Pant.
Ponting said in the post-match press, “I fully support his (Pant) every decision on the field. Being a T20 captain before, I know you have a lot to think about especially under extreme pressure. Not a lot of time for that.” Conference after DC’s 91-run loss to CSK.
“It’s easy to make a decision from outside but trust me it’s not an easy thing to do when you’re in the middle.”
Elaborating on a captain’s decision-making process, the great batsman said, “A captain takes decisions in a very short span of time and the decisions he takes, he feels are the best for the team at that time of the match.” Is.
“When he takes such decisions, he takes into account things like the size of the boundary and the batsmen at the crease,” he said.
However, he admitted that his team performed poorly in all departments of the game in the loss against CSK.
“Our bowling was not good, similarly our batting was very bad. There was not much positivity from the match. There was only positive Khaleel AhmedHe was excellent with the ball again,” Ponting said.
“To lose by 91 runs, it would make a huge dent in our net run-rate. That means we need a really strong bounce in our next game.”
Ponting said that DC can still make it to the playoffs with a win in the remaining three matches.
“We think we can make the play-offs with three wins. Eight wins can be enough and a big win can help our net run rate. Who knows we might be in the final.”
“That’s what we can think of, what has happened has happened and we want to look to the future and look for a rebound from the poor performance.”
DC are facing issues related to COVID-19 just ahead of a CSK match on Sunday with a net bowler testing positive for the virus. Some of his players and support staff as well as Ponting’s family member had also contracted the virus last month.
“It’s not an excuse for us. It’s not the first time that we’ve had to deal with this on game day. In one of the earlier games against Punjab Kings, we had to deal with the same thing and actually win that game .Easy,” he said.
“We’re going to make excuses and find solutions to the problems we’re facing. Although it wasn’t ideal preparation, we should have played better cricket. At the end of the day, we let ourselves down.”
(Inputs from PTI)