"We'll have a more positive intent": DC coach Ponting ahead of IPL clash with CSK
Mar 30, 2024
Visakhapatnam (Andhra Pradesh) [India], March 30 : Ahead of the clash with five-time IPL champions Chennai Super Kings (CSK), Delhi Capitals head coach Ricky Ponting said his team will go into the game with a more positive intent.
After losing their first two games of the ongoing IPL season, DC will lock horns with CSK in the 13th fixture of the tournament at the Y.S. Rajasekhara Reddy ACA-VDCA Cricket Stadium in Visakhapatnam on Sunday.
The World Cup-winner for Australia asserted that the Capitals would have won both games had veteran seamer Ishant Sharma not hobbled off the first match with an injury and the team not conceded too many runs in the second.
"We had a couple of chats about our cricket and the consensus out of those meetings is that we have played some really good and bad cricket. So, we need to find somewhere in the middle where we can play consistently good cricket over 40 overs. We could have easily won both our first games, with Ishant going down in the first game didn't really help and the other day we went for a few more runs in the bowling innings of that match," Ponting was quoted as saying in a press release by the Delhi Capitals.
The 49-year-old stated further that the team will be a 'bit more aggressive' in the CSK clash.
"It's not a short tournament, it's quite a long tournament, but by saying that, you would prefer to get off to a good start than get off to a slow start. We have still got 12 games to play. I'm pretty sure we'll have a more positive intent going into this game, we'll be a lot more aggressive in this game than we've been in the first couple of games, and I think if we take the right attitude into this game then we can definitely win," the former Australia skipper added.
The Delhi-based franchise got off to the worst-possible start in the ongoing edition of the IPL, losing their lung opener to the Punjab Kings (PBKS) by 4 wickets and also going down in their next against the Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) by seven wickets.
The Capitals are currently placed bottom of the IPL points table, with no wins and a net run rate of -0.528.
Delhi Capitals squad for IPL 2024: David Warner, Mitchell Marsh, Shai Hope, Rishabh Pant(w/c), Ricky Bhui, Tristan Stubbs, Axar Patel, Sumit Kumar, Abishek Porel, Kuldeep Yadav, Khaleel Ahmed, Ishant Sharma, Mukesh Kumar, Jake Fraser-McGurk, Vicky Ostwal, Praveen Dubey, Jhye Richardson, Anrich Nortje, Prithvi Shaw, Lalit Yadav, Rasikh Dar Salam, Kumar Kushagra, Yash Dhull, Swastik Chikara.
