“I still think we were the best team” - Coach Ricky Ponting reflects on Delhi Capitals’ IPL 2021 campaign

Despite Chennai Super Kings (CSK) emerging Indian Premier League (IPL) 2021 champions, Ricky Ponting feels that Delhi Capitals (DC) were the best team in the edition. He lamented that Delhi made a few critical mistakes at crucial moments, costing them dearly.

DC topped the group stage of IPL 2021 with 10 wins in 14 games. However, they crashed out of the tournament following losses in both the Qualifiers.

Looking back at Qualifier 2, Ponting said during an interaction on the YouTube channel The Grade Cricketer:

“In the KKR game, Sharjah was never a good place to play with three spinners and they played a lot of their cricket there. But with that game, they needed 12 of 25 balls and then they needed 6 of 2 (chuckles) and then they hit the second last ball for 6.”

Ponting recalls telling his team that they were the best side but made mistakes that ended up costing them a place in the final. The DC head stated:

“I said this to the boys at the end that I still think we were the best team in the tournament. As good as Chennai were, they went on to win it again. But, I think we were the best team. We just made a couple of critical mistakes at crucial moments at the end, which is the difference between winning and losing in T20 and the difference in winning or losing tournaments. We made those mistakes.”

Chasing 136, KKR were cruising at 125 for 2 in the 17th over. However, they crumbled to 130 for 7 before a Rahul Tripathi six lifted Kolkata into the final.

---

“We would have gone straight into the final” - Ponting on lost opportunity against CSK

Ponting believes that DC should have defeated CSK in Qualifier 1 and progressed straight to the final. Chennai needed 24 off the last two, but MS Dhoni played a blinder to take the game away from Delhi.

He admitted that the decision to give Tom Curran the last over despite Kagiso Rabada having one left was not the right one. Ponting conceded:

“We had our chance against CSK and we should have won that game. We would have gone straight into the final. It was a really disappointing way for us to end. (Before that) In the last round game against RCB, they needed 9 off 2 balls and then seven off the last ball. Avesh Khan bowls a leg-side wide. A high full-toss last ball, hit for six, that’s how we lost that one. Chennai needed 20-odd off the last two overs. We had Tom Curran or Rabada left to bowl the last over. We chose to bowl Tom Curran (smirks).”

Chasing 173, CSK needed 13 off the last over. Dhoni slammed Curran for three fours to put Chennai in yet another final.