Blame Game In Delhi Capitals Camp After Defeat Against Lucknow Super Giants In IPL 2023, Ricky Ponting Says THIS

The head coach of Delhi Capitals, Ricky Ponting, expressed his disappointment with the poor fielding of his team, particularly after the first four overs, in their first match of IPL 2023 against Lucknow Super Giants. During the match, Delhi struggled in the fielding department, with Kyle Mayers getting a lucky break when Khaleel Ahmed dropped his catch at short third off Chetan Sakariya in the sixth over. Mayers capitalized on this opportunity and went on to score a blistering 73 off just 38 balls, helping Lucknow amass a total of 193/6 in their first-ever home game.

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"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. The thing with giving chances in the IPL is you're giving very good players a second opportunity. And he cashed in. For pretty much from that moment on, he hit everything in the middle. He attacked our spin, which he played really well. So that's just a good lesson for us. We know that we have to be really sharp in the field," said Ponting in the post-match press conference.

Despite the pitch appearing to be difficult for stroke play, Lucknow surprised everyone by hitting 16 sixes compared to Delhi's five fours, led by KL Rahul. With the exception of Ahmed's 2/30 in four overs, all of Delhi's bowlers had an economy rate above eight.

"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. Our fielding after the first four overs was really sloppy. A couple of chances went down, a few misfields. You can't afford to put chances down, and 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," he added.

Ponting also admitted that his team had anticipated some raw pace and menacing bouncers from Mark Wood, the tearaway pacer. Wood's 5/14 in the power-play broke the back of Delhi's run chase, causing them to finish with a total of 143/9 in 20 overs.

"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. Whenever you're giving up 16 sixes, and there's only five fours, which is quite remarkable." he said.

"So, whenever you're giving up that many, it's going to be hard to drag yourself back into the game. Looking at the wicket, 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," he added.

"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. He got those couple of bowleds and used his bouncer really well. He's a world-class fast bowler. As this tournament goes on, if he stays fit, you will see him bowl some really fast spells," the coach said.

Delhi will have their first home game of IPL 2023 at the Arun Jaitley Stadium on Tuesday against defending champions, Gujarat Titan