Ponting confident of DC's chances against CSK, says they need to play their 'best cricket for 40 overs'

Delhi Capitals head coach Ricky Ponting sounded confident in his team’s ability to turn things around despite starting the 2024 Indian Premier League (IPL) with back-to-back defeats, saying it was simply a matter of playing their “best cricket for 40 overs”.

Delhi, who have wicketkeeper-batter Rishabh Pant back as their captain this season, began the season with a four-wicket defeat against Punjab Kings in Mullanpur followed by a 12-run loss against Rajasthan Royals in Jaipur, their defeats largely due to their inconsistency.

Also Read | Why was Ricky Ponting upset during RR vs DC in IPL 2024?

On Sunday, they face an even sterner challenge against defending champions Chennai Super Kings (CSK), whom they ‘host’ at the ACA-VDCA Stadium in Visakhapatnam on Sunday.

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“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,” Ponting said on Saturday in his pre-match press meet.

“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.

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“However, we are very confident that we’re going to be able to turn things around against a good CSK team, but it’s just a matter of us playing our best cricket for 40 overs,” he added.

Speaking about the approach going forward, Ponting said he is expecting a more aggressive intent from his team.

“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.”

When asked about playing two home matches in Visakhapatnam, the former Australia captain said, “This is our second home for this tournament, this is not a neutral venue by any chance.

“We have got our first two games here and we want to make sure that this is a place that we can win.”

With PTI inputs