Ashwin, who had not conceded a single boundary in his three overs, was ideally supposed to bowl his last over when two left-handers—Miller and Tewatia were at the crease.
Ricky Ponting. Pic/Suresh Karkera
Delhi Capitals (DC) head coach Ricky Ponting reckoned failure in proper execution of plans at crucial moments resulted in DC’s three-wicket loss to Rajasthan Royals (RR) in an IPL encounter at the Wankhede Stadium in Mumbai on Thursday.
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The former Australia captain also accepted that not allowing off-spinner R Ashwin (3-0-14-0) to complete his quota of overs was a mistake.
In reply to DC’s 147-8, RR began their hunt, but except David Miller (43-ball 62, 7x4, 2x6), no one shouldered the responsibility till Rahul Tewatia (19 in 17), Chris Morris (unbeaten 36 in 18, 4x6) and Jaydev Unadkat (unbeaten 11 in 7, 1x6) came to the rescue.
Ashwin, who had not conceded a single boundary in his three overs, was ideally supposed to bowl his last over when two left-handers—Miller and Tewatia were at the crease. However, DC captain Rishabh Pant went to medium-pacer Marcus Stoinis (1-0-15-0) in the 13th over. Miller capitalised on the opportunity, hitting the Australian for three consecutive fours.
“That’s certainly something that we will talk about when I get a chance to sit down with the team. He [Ashwin] had bowled beautifully. Three overs, none for 14. Hadn’t even conceded a boundary. He had a disappointing game [v Chennai Super Kings, 1-47] 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 [Thursday]. Probably a mistake and something we will be talking about later on,” Ponting said at the post-match virtual press conference on Thursday night.
South African all-rounder Morris, 33, the costliest player of IPL-14 (Rs 16.25 crore) came to the crease in the 15th over when RR needed 58 in 30 balls. However, the penultimate and last over bowled by pacer Kagiso Rabada (2-30) and Tom Curran (0-35) respectively turned the match in favour of RR as Morris hit four sixes.
“We probably gave him [Morris] a few too many easy balls, a few too many slot balls if you like. 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,” Ponting admitted.
Pant’s 32-ball 51 ended up in vain while opposition bowlers Unadkat (3-15) and Mustafizur Rahman (2-29) prospered.
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