When the big auction happened in February, Delhi Capitals on paper looked the most solid side and most of the pundits expected this could be the year they can have their hands on the IPL trophy which has eluded them since its inception in 2008. But sadly it was not to be.
The team blew hot and cold through all 14 games this season and they managed to win just 7 of them and could not make it to the playoffs this year.
Never clicked
They started off the season with a victory over Mumbai Indians in their first game which should have given them the right tonic but it was not to be. They were good in one game but the opposite in the other games. Despite having big batters in David Warner, Mitchell Marsh, Romvell Powell, Rishab Pant, Prithvi Shaw, all-rounders like Axar Patel, Lalit Yadav and Shardul Thakur, their batting never clicked consistently. Their foreign players like Warner, Marsh and Powell were more often than not doing the bulk of the scoring but their Indian batters were not scoring when it mattered.
In their last match they had to beat the bottom placed Mumbai and everyone felt they would do that and make it to the playoffs. But the pressure got to their batsman and at one stage they were at 50/4 before Romvell bailed them out to took them to a score of 160 to defend. They had Mumbai on the mat till a bizarre decision of captain Pant deciding not to review the caught behind decision of the dangerous Tim David cost them the game and a place in the playoffs which allowed Royal Challengers Bangalore to sneak in. Yes, there was dew but their bowlers choked under pressure and let the winning match slip.
Paid the price
This situation would have never come had their batsman been consistent and scoring runs but they failed and paid the price for it. Pant scored 300 runs but most of them came in a losing cause. The off field drama also did not help Pant when in the game against Rajasthan Royals he wanted to call his players back when a waist height full toss was not given as a no ball. Their team also had a few cases of COVID-19 and more importantly their opener Shaw was out for a few games due to typhoid.
All these thing did not help Delhi and they ended falling short once again. It’s been a year of so near yet so far but this was Delhi’s best chance but sadly they let it slip.
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