Delhi Capitals captain Rishabh Pant couldn't get going as the team looked to chase down 'record' total of 267 runs against Sunrisers Hyderabad (SRH) in the Indian Premier League (IPL) 2024 on Saturday. It was young Australian Jake Fraser-McGurk, whose 18-ball 65 gave DC some hope of getting near SRH's total but other batters failed to match his tempo. In terms of the number of balls, Pant lasted the longest on the crease, scoring 35-ball 44 but the pace of his knock left much to desire.
After the game, Pant admitted that his team was playing catch-up almost the entire match. While it was the powerplay where DC unarguably lost the match, courtesy of poor their poor bowling, even Pant was criticised by fans for his poor show with the bat in the match.
After the match, the wicket-keeper batter said: "I think the only thought process behind it was there could be dew which didn't come (on choosing to bowl first), but we would still have had a chance had we restricted them to 220-230. The powerplay was the difference, they got (125) runs and we ended up playing catching up after that. The ball stopped more in the 2nd innings, that was more than we anticipated, but when we needed to chase 260, 270, you'll need to keep scoring.
"Hopefully, we'll come up with more thought process and a clear mindset going forward. His batting has been phenomenal (on Fraser-McGurk), he's been nice for us, that's what we need to do as a team, be together, look at areas where we can improve going into the next game."
With the defeat, Delhi Capitals are placed 7th in the points table, with only 3 wins in 8 matches in this campaign so far.