Delhi Capitals captain Axar Patel made an honest admission after their horrific loss against Royal Challengers Bengaluru, saying he had no clue what had gone wrong with his team or why they had suddenly dropped form midway through the Indian Premier League.
DC have now lost back-to-back games in damaging fashion. Against Punjab Kings, they posted 264 runs, one of the highest totals in IPL history, only to let the game slip away. Punjab chased down the target in just 18.5 overs, marking a major disaster for the Delhi side.
On Monday, DC were bowled out for just 75 runs, courtesy of exceptional spells from Josh Hazlewood and Bhuvneshwar Kumar. RCB found the target of 76 child’s play and chased it down in just 6.3 overs.
“Even I don’t know what happened. You have to be on your toes in cricket. We need to forget these losses and move on,” Axar Patel said after the match.
The DC captain said that he could nitpick if he wanted to, but advised that the team needed to stop taking things lightly in the Indian Premier League.
“You can think about it, but ifs and buts keep going on. One catch (vs Punjab) or one run in that GT game could have kept the momentum ticking. But you have to be on your toes and you need to be consistent with what you are doing. You cannot take things easy in the IPL. You know what a difficult tournament this is. You can’t think about the past and look at the future,” he added.
DC LOSE 5 IN 6 MATCHES
The loss against RCB was Delhi’s fifth in the last six matches. They had begun their tournament with two wins in a row against Lucknow and Mumbai but have completely lost their momentum. DC now totter in seventh spot in the league table with three wins from eight games.
Axar said that the team needed to move on quickly and stay positive in the second half of the tournament.
“We have to move on. If you are negative, you have to play, if you are positive you have to play. I will tell the team as well. Stay positive and move on from the loss,” Axar said.
The captain credited the RCB fast bowlers, Josh Hazlewood and Bhuvneshwar Kumar, for bowling well, but added that his batters should have stayed at the crease and seen out the tough phase.
“I wasn’t surprised. They are world-class bowlers. If our top order played out a couple more overs, things would have been different. But credit to RCB bowlers,” concluded the DC captain.
DC do not have a lot of time to recover from the loss as they travel to Jaipur to play Rajasthan Royals on May 1. They will then return home and play Chennai Super Kings on May 5.
