Visakhapatnam: Summing up Delhi Capitals’ performance this season, skipper Shreyas Iyer said every player took initiative and responsibility before they fell just short of making their first ever IPL final, going down to Chennai Super Kings in Qualifier 2 here.
Playing under a new name in this edition, Delhi Capitals managed to turn their fortunes around with coach Ricky Ponting and advisor Sourav Ganguly at the helm.
“There are a lot of positives to talk about. At the start of the season with half of us youngsters in the team (but) Ricky, Sourav Ganguly came in and gave their views regarding how we would be going this season. Everyone was really enthusiastic to take forward from there on.
“The way we started…right from the Mumbai game, Rishabh (Pant) started with a great knock and from there on every individual took responsibility. In the league phase, we did amazing. Last season was really disappointing for us and the way we came out this year, everybody took that initiative and responsibility till this game,” Iyer said at the post-match press conference.
“Off the field also, we have gelled as a team and now it’s time to grow from here on. I am really proud of the way we played this season. We’ve got a lot more to come next season,” he added.
Delhi Capitals ended the league stage with 18 points, similar points as finalists Mumbai Indians and Chennai Super Kings. They also managed to win their Eliminator against Sunrisers Hyderabad but could not cross the Qualifier 2 hurdle against the defending champions, losing by six wickets here on Friday night.
Delhi was restricted to just 147 for nine but Iyer refused to blame the pitch for their dismal show with the bat.
“It was not a very difficult wicket to bat on. We had a disappointing start, losing two wickets in the powerplay, and it was hard to recover from that. I thought that if I play a few balls and take time, it doesn’t matter because I can capitalise later on. And I have done that in the past. I was taking my time and I thought Imran’s over was to go for.
“It was right in the slot but I just mistimed it and we started losing wickets from there again. So it was a miscalculation which happened and it was a bad day for us,” explained the captain.
