New Delhi: Delhi Capitals failed to keep up the momentum as after a commanding win over Mumbai in their opening game of IPL 2019, the Shreyas Iyer-led franchise lost to Chennai by six wickets on Tuesday and head coach Ricky Ponting feels that the team cannot over-rely on Rishabh Pant, and the other batsmen too need to rise to the challenge of playing smart cricket.
"We can't expect Rishabh to play like he did in Mumbai every day. Nobody can go out and get 78 off 20 odd balls everyday. It was just Rishabh though. Colin Ingram had an opportunity as did Shreyas (Iyer). So yeah, in an ideal world we would have liked Shikhar Dhawan to have scored a little bit quicker, but we could see it was difficult for him.
"He hurt his ankle as well while batting. His usual running between the wickets was also hampered. We need to sit down and discuss how we can play smart with our cricket on this wicket. It is the backend of our innings that I was most disappointed with," he said.
Skipper Iyer too accepted that the batsmen found the going tough on a Kotla wicket that was its usual self -- slow and low.
"For the new batsman, the pitch was really tough. I usually don't have trouble starting against spinners but today it was turning and holding up. Our best batter Rishabh Pant also found it tough.
"The wicket was slow and that's why I decided to bat first. We were 10-15 runs short. I wouldn't blame the batting," Iyer said.
He also said that there were a lot of positives to take home from the game against Chennai as this is just the start of the season.
"We could have restricted them in the powerplay. There are a lot of games remaining and this is just the beginning. Lots of positive to take out from this match," he added.
