April 30 (Punjab Khabarnama) : After bouncing back emphatically with four wins from five encounters, the Delhi Capitals went lacklustre against the Kolkata Knight Riders on Monday at the Eden Gardens. The guests opted to bat first and could only manage to score 153 runs after having managed to post more than 200 runs against Gujarat Giants and Mumbai Indians in their last two encounters.
DC skipper Rishabh Pant’s decision to bat first wasn’t comprehended by the experts as they bashed the former over the team’s below-average outing against KKR.
The team’s opening looked positive after Prithvi Shaw hit 3 fours off Mitchell Starc in the first over. However, he was dismissed by Vaibhav Arora in the next over. Shaw was soon followed by Jake Fraser-McGurk who launched Starc for a four and a six but was caught in the deep. The wickets kept tumbling thereafter as the team wasn’t given any chance by KKR to get into the momentum.
KKR didn’t waste much time as they finished the match in the 17th over courtesy of Phil Salt’s heroics and finishing touches from Shreyas Iyer and Venkatesh Iyer.
Former Australian cricketer Michael Clarke believed that the 2020-runner-ups fell some 50 runs short if they had planned to bat first as they did not have enough runs in their hands to defend.
“I am not sure if I agree with everything that was said after the game. You win, you got it right, you lose, and then you did not get it right. I think he got it wrong in electing to bat on that surface. And I don’t think they were 10 runs short, they were 50 runs short,” Clarke told Star Sports.
“There were still 3.3 overs left in the run-chase and KKR were only 3 wickets down. KKR would have made at least another 40 if not 50. So, I think DC needed 200 if they were going to bat first,” he added.
Meanwhile, former Indian opener Aakash Chopra also expressed disgrace over the DC skipper’s gamble to bat first as he put him under light of questions.
“Who bats first after winning the toss? I am not being too critical but I have to talk about it if it’s the truth. The team winning the toss has batted first only two times in the last 30 matches here, and whoever did that lost. It’s not that you always win while chasing but no one bats first in Kolkata,” Chopra said in a video on his YouTube channel.
Chopra also asserted that the batting would have been easier in the second innings and who other than DC coach Sourav Ganguly could have deciphered the pitch.
“Whatever happens, the batting becomes slightly easier later but Delhi said they would bat first. I was surprised. If Sourav Ganguly couldn’t read this pitch, who could have? This pitch is like the back of his palm. You know all of it, so it wasn’t understandable,” the former India opener added.
After faltering against the hosts, DC have slumped to no.6 in the points table with 5 wins from 11 matches. Their run rate was heavily dented by KKR’s rocketry in the chase at -0.442.