Delhi Capitals head coach Ricky Ponting has praised his side and feels that they are in good stead before the playoffs. In a video posted by the franchise’s official Twitter handle, he applauded their collective performance before going to the playoffs.
Despite their loss against Royal Challengers Bangalore on Friday, Delhi Capitals finished the league stage at the top. The Capitals will play against Chennai Super Kings in their first qualifier on Sunday. And, he feels a lot of their success depends on their strong core and bench strength. Ponting gave the credit to the players as different players have stepped up in different situations as well. Ponting also applauded Shikhar Dhawan, Prithvi Shaw and Rishabh Pant have scored runs consistently.
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Ricky Ponting said: “I think we have been a bit lucky throughout the season as we haven’t had to make too many changes. We have a pretty solid core group of players together. Shreyas coming back in was a huge boost to the team and Nortje for the back half of the season when Woakes hasn’t been around. He has been a standout player for us.’So, we haven’t had to make too many changes. The sign of a team is not about one or two great players. It’s about 11 players on the field and they all chip in to do what they need to when the team needs them to do the most and we’ve been out of finding the number of guys you see to do that.”
He continued: “Hetmyer has been amazing, chipping in where he’s had to. The captain’s got nearly 400 runs and Shikhar’s got 500 odd runs and Prithvi is getting close up to 400 runs now. We have shared the loadout really well.’And I think in another way you can judge that as well, if you look at some of the awards and things that are given through the teams, you don’t see many Delhi Capitals players in that because we have been sharing out the load. It’s not about one player. We’re playing like a team and I think it’s a really good sign for us.”
Meanwhile, Shikhar Dhawan has been scoring constantly, scoring 544 runs in 14 games at 41.84. His opening partnership with Shaw has been one of the main reasons for their success this season as well. And, he is confident the Capitals will do good against Chennai.
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“Very happy. I think if someone had offered any of us at the start of the tournament, we would have grabbed it with both hands. I’ve been pretty happy about it. We have played some really good cricket right through the first 14 games. If we look back at all the games that we played, the four games we have lost, you could probably say that we could have won all four of those as well. I am delighted. In fact, I told the boys that a loss at this time in the tournament is not the worst thing that can happen either. It gives us a chance to reset and ensure we are ready to go for the qualifier against Chennai. So far so good,” Ricky Ponting concluded.
