CHENNAI: A little over three weeks ago, things were looking rosy for Delhi Capitals (DC). The Axar Patel-led side had just pulled off a thrilling victory over Royal Challengers Bengaluru at the M Chinnaswamy Stadium in Bengaluru, their fourth scalp in as many games of the ongoing edition of the Indian Premier League.
Delhi had opened their account with a nail-biting win over Lucknow Super Giants before going on to repeat the feat against Sunrisers Hyderabad and Chennai Super Kings. Incidentally, it was the first time DC had won their first four games in a season in the history of the competition. The confidence of players had understandably soared and DC were one of the early contenders to make it to the playoffs. That seems like a distant past now.
The narrative has flipped dramatically in the last nine days or so. After a run of iffy games, Delhi are now fighting for survival.
In the pre-match presser ahead of the game against Sunrisers Hyderabad, batter Karun Nair, mindful of their diminishing returns, had stressed on the importance of control. "Every time we go out there, we look to win. So we would like to win and keep going further in the tournament. The talk (in the dressing room) is only about what we can control and what we can improve on. What we can control is how we play and we win our games. We can't keep looking behind us or in front of us," he had said.
Come Monday, Karun and the rest of the Delhi top order were thoroughly deprived of that. Instead, it was Pat Cummins who was running the show with the ball, adding to Delhi batters' woes. It was a new low for Delhi. They finished with 133/7 in 20 overs, the lowest total they have posted so far this season. Following DC's misery, the rain intervened and the match was eventually called off. DC earned a vital point while SRH, courtesy of this outcome, became the third team to be out of contention for the playoffs.
As was evident in their latest outing, Delhi's batting has been their main area of concern. They have experimented with several players at the top. Faf Du Plessis, Jake Fraser-McGurk, Abishek Porel, Karun and KL Rahul. That has led to mixed returns and in a sport that is decided by the slimmest of margins, that has hurt the team. In their last match against Kolkata Knight Riders, Porel, who was opening alongside Faf, lasted just two balls. Karun, who took up the responsibility of facing the first over against SRH on the day, got out on the very first ball. Faf, who had scored a half-century against Kolkata Knight Riders in their last match, lasted just eight balls making 3 runs. Porel, coming in as one drop, for the Hyderabad match, didn't disturb the scorers a lot as he was dismissed for 8. Even the ever-reliable Rahul, the top run-getter for the club, couldn't do a rescue act as DC were reduced to 26 for 4 at the end of powerplay at the Rajiv Gandhi International Stadium. That is incidentally the second-lowest powerplay score so far this season.
Barring Virat Kohli for RCB, who's at the pinnacle, all teams above DC have at least two batters in the top-15 run-getters of the season so far. The only batter to make the cut for DC is Rahul with 381 runs. Gujarat Titans boast three players while Punjab Kings have two. In hindsight, the cracks were visible even during their dream start to the season. Barring their second win over SRH on March 30, the other wins were mainly down to individual brilliance — Ashutosh Sharma vs LSG and Rahul vs RCB, for example.
After their 14-run loss against Kolkata at the Arun Jaitley Stadium, captain Axar, in the post-match presentation ceremony, had touched upon the batting department's shortcomings and had urged his players to stay calm. "During our chase, we misjudged our calculations and we had two, three soft dismissals and that turned the game in their favour," he had noted.
"The way the powerplay went and the manner in which we restricted them... it was quite good. We bowled well in the middle and death overs. And the way the batting went as well, two, three batters could not get runs but three, four batters did well and we lost by 10, 12 runs. We just need to stay positive, we shouldn't overthink as a batter...thinking I could have done this, I could have done that. Whenever you lose a close match, I feel you just need to stay calm," he had added.
Despite their recent ordeals, the DC camp would be hopeful that the batters can course-correct and put up an improved show in the upcoming matches.
Brief scores: Delhi Capitals 133/7 in 20 ovs (Stubbs 41 n.o, Ashutosh 41; Cummins 3/19, Unadkat 1/13) vs Sunrisers Hyderabad. Match called off due to rain.