We would want Shikhar Dhawan to score quicker, says Ricky Ponting

Delhi Capitals have endured an indifferent start to the 12th edition of the Indian Premier League (IPL). They are one of the underachievers in the IPL and are the only team who have never made it to the finals even once. However, they assembled a good, solid team this year. Moreover, the team had a good start to the tournament as well. On the back of Rishabh Pant’s fabulous 78 (which came off 27 balls), DC beat Mumbai Indians in their opening game.

However, in their first home game of the season, they lost to the defending champions Chennai Super Kings (CSK). After opting to bat first on a low pitch, they could post only 147 runs on the board and the CSK made light work of the chase. The result was a foregone conclusion in the first 10 overs of the chase itself.

The Capitals though had a chance to post a much bigger total at the halfway stage in their innings. Shikhar Dhawan, their opener, was set and he literally batted until the 17th over. But he couldn’t up the ante at any stage and scored just over a run a ball and this has been pointed out by the coach Ricky Ponting.

We want him to play a certain role

Dhawan who scored a half-century largely went about his innings just under a run-a-ball. He accelerated towards the end to finish with a strike-rate of 108.51. Even in the first game, he didn’t have a huge strike-rate. He scored 43 off 36 balls before the Rishabh Pant show started. Hence, the DC coach Ricky Ponting admitted that Dhawan needs to adapt and be flexible as Pant won’t score runs like he did in the first game every time.

“There’s a certain role that we want Shikhar to play in this team. Even by his own admission, he would’ve liked to score quicker today but at the 15th over mark, we were 118 for 2. No, we can’t expect Rishabh to play like he did in Mumbai, every day. No one can do that, no one can go and get 78 off 20-odd balls in every game,” Ponting said in the post-match presser.

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