Ricky Ponting said close finishes will help Delhi Capitals prepare better for the back-end of IPL 2021. On Tuesday (April 27) in Ahmedabad, DC suffered a one-run defeat against Royal Challengers Bangalore even after skipper Rishabh Pant and Shimron Hetmyer scored unbeaten fifties. Delhi Capitals are IPL 2020 finalists and are among the top three teams in IPL 2021. (Photos: BCCI and DC; Video: BCCI)
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00:15 Do you think these such close matches early on in the tournament will hold your side in good stead?
00:20 And Rishabh Pant looked quite upset with the result in the end.
00:23 How do you ensure that this does not impact his game in the next match looking that he's a young captain?
00:28 Yeah, look I think, you know, obviously our last game went to a super over as well and this one we got down to one run today.
00:34 I mean that can only hold you in good stead for when the bigger games, you know, hopefully come around at the back end.
00:38 You know, we obviously we're not thinking about the back end of the tournament yet.
00:41 We're on a bit of a tough run at the moment where we've got, I think, three games in four days.
00:46 So, yeah, we've just got to take our learnings away from tonight.
00:50 I'm sure Rishabh will learn a lot about himself.
00:53 I'm sure all the players getting in that sort of situation tonight where, you know, every run counts and every ball counts.
00:58 I think they'll learn a lot from that and take a lot from that.
01:00 And that's certainly what I'll be talking to the boys about when I get back upstairs and talk to the whole group is just how important that one ball or one run can be.
01:09 Because, you know, our last two games have been decided by the narrowest of margins.
01:13 What did you make of Rishabh Pant's batting and has captaincy made him more responsible at the crease?
01:19 Yeah, look, I thought he played really well tonight.
01:21 He'll be disappointed.
01:23 He wants to be in those situations.
01:25 He wants to be the man that's in at the end and wins the game for D.C.
01:29 We didn't do that tonight, but we were very, very close.
01:33 He's growing every day as a captain as well.
01:35 I think that's the thing that I'm most impressed about with Rishabh Pant over the last six or eight months.
01:39 I think he's growing as a person every day.
01:41 And that's part of my job is to continue to work with him and let him grow and let him develop and just give him a few little pointers along the way where we can.
01:49 And things that I might have seen in the game that I can talk to him about that we might be able to improve on and sharpen up on in the next game.
01:55 But we certainly won't overanalyze tonight.
01:59 I mean, it was a magnificent game of cricket.
02:01 I know I've got no fingernails left sitting in the dugout over there.
02:04 It was a great game.
02:05 And unfortunately, RCB were just a little bit too good for us.
02:07 Hey, coach, with four wins in six games, how do you see this start by the side this year?
02:13 And with Ashwin unavailable now, do you think this is the best balance 11 DC can feel at this ground with three games to go?
02:20 How do I think we've started?
02:21 I think we've started well.
02:23 I still don't think we've played our absolute best cricket yet.
02:26 You know, a couple of games that we played in Mumbai, we had convincing run chases, but we probably had the better of the conditions there.
02:32 You know, we need to just tighten up on a few little areas.
02:35 I think we should have closed the game out a bit better against Sunrisers a couple of days ago.
02:40 You know, I feel hilarious tonight that we're just a little bit sloppy in that, as I said, when these games are decided by such fine margins,
02:46 you can't afford to be just off the boil by one or two balls or have a bad over here and there.
02:51 It's going to cost you more often than not.
02:52 So we started well, but I think there is still a lot of improvement in this team to come.
02:57 You know, Stoinis hasn't had a lot of time in the middle yet.
02:59 Shikha and Pripy have done a great job at the top.
03:02 Smith is just sort of working his way into the tournament.
03:05 So there's some improvement there on the balance of our team.
03:08 With Ashwin not being there, obviously Akshara and Mishra are the best spinners that we have in our squad.
03:13 We will toss up whether we play two overseas pacemen.
03:17 That's the other option that we've got with guys like Chris Wokes and Nork here in our squad.
03:21 We think at some stage in this tournament that they can play a big part and a big role for us.
03:26 So, yeah, look, I'm delighted with the squad of players that we've got, and it actually makes my job as coach and captain and the selectors,
03:32 it makes our job a little bit tougher knowing that you've got so much talent around your group.
03:35 So keep watching out for the Delhi Capitals.
03:38 I'm sure we'll get better and better as this tournament goes on.
03:40 [BLANK_AUDIO]