DoC Venugopal Rao: For Venugopal Rao, the sense of deja vu must be as stifling as the scorching heat in the national capital. Rao, currently the director of cricket at Delhi Capitals, endured two “wooden spoon” finishes during his time as a player with the franchise from 2011-13, when it used to be called Delhi Daredevils.The script feels eerily familiar, with Rao now presiding over another collapse. A ruthless eight‑wicket demolition by Kolkata Knight Riders on Friday – DC’s fifth straight home defeat – has snuffed out their playoffs hopes and prolonged the franchise’s agonising pursuit of a maiden IPL crown.
“Eighteen years, obviously it hurts. Seriously, when you look back, when I played during my days, I always wanted to win from Daredevils time to now. It’s a learning process for me. Coming into the administration part, a lot of things I’m just learning. As per what the skipper said, we want to try youngsters and let’s see,” said a dejected Rao in the post-match press conference.
The statistics paint a grim picture of a side that has lost its way in its own backyard. After an initial victory over Mumbai Indians, the Arun Jaitley Stadium has become a hunting ground for visitors rather than a stronghold for DC.
On Friday, thanks to Finn Allen’s unbeaten 47-ball ton, KKR chased down 143 with clinical ease, needing just 14.2 overs to embarrass a DC side that appears tactically adrift. DC’s campaign has been defined by wild inconsistency and a staggering inability to read local conditions, which have been varied in nature.
Making 264 against Punjab Kings failed to translate into a win. Days later, the side posted the IPL’s lowest powerplay total, slumping to 13/6 against Royal Challengers Bengaluru and handed the initiative to the defending champions.
A home match against Gujarat Titans slipped away by a single run after David Miller could not score two runs off two balls. Chennai Super Kings also recorded a comfortable victory in Delhi, as the ‘Qila Kotla’ mention around the franchise’s pre-tournament promotions have turned a potential fortress into a liability and something which demands urgent review.
“See, not one department – I think all three departments failed. After getting a good start, after seven or eight overs, we were in a good position, one wicket or something down. Then later on, next six to seven overs, we couldn’t get a boundary. In this big beast of a tournament, you can’t miss chances.
“We need to win patches and those small, small areas – not only batting, even in bowling or fielding. In the whole tournament, when you see it, we couldn’t win those small, small areas. One day in batting, one day in fielding, one day in bowling,” added Rao.
On Friday, DC were 74/2 in nine overs, though they didn’t entirely break free in power-play due to slowness in pitch and one felt they could implode yet again. They had their reasons – Pathum Nissanka was wonderful in his leg-side strokeplay, but then the spin choke from KKR, just like how they inflicted one over DC last year at this venue – began to take shape.
With five fielders patrolling the boundary, Sunil Narine, Varun Chakravarthy and Anukul Roy began to dictate terms and choke the scoring, as between overs 12-16 Delhi managed just 11 runs from 30 balls – a mid-innings drought which never happened in the IPL.
The pressure was manufactured rather than mysterious. Roy set the tone, stumping Nissanka with a slower, wider delivery before castling Tristan Stubbs, as KKR exposed that DC’s batting line-up could not adjust to sustained and accurate spin bowling. In all, DC played 51 dot balls, and in comparison to Allen’s brutal century, they looked like a side stuck in a batting template of a bygone era.
“I think in the last couple of matches, where we felt that batting is the main concern. When you’re batting first, you saw last match also, we failed in the first 10 overs. Somewhere in the next 10 overs, we recovered. I think here also, when we got a good start, we couldn’t capitalize.
“This kind of a tournament, you can’t miss those patches. See, here we can’t coach. Everybody has experience and at the end of the day, you need to read the situation, conditions and when you can adapt only, you win matches. We can’t keep sending messages as a batting group.
“One more thing – the biggest challenge as a batting group is responsibility, when things fail, as a batting unit, you need to take responsibility. I’ll do it, rather than somebody does it. So, I think that is missing, I felt. Maybe, let’s see next couple of games, how this, as a batting unit, how it will turn up,” elaborated Rao.
When pressed further, Rao drew on specific matches to make his case. “Sorry, I cannot point to just one department. In different matches, different departments have let us down. Against Punjab, we scored heavily but then dropped catches while bowling. In some games, the bowlers did well but the batters could not adapt.
“In the last two games especially, the batters struggled to adapt to the conditions. Overall, if you ask me, yes, batting has been an area where we needed to adapt better in certain conditions. Even in the first few games, after losing four or five wickets, we still managed to win a couple of matches. But sometimes, I think, the batting unit has let us down,” he said.
A question about skipper Axar Patel’s horrible run with the bat and if Prithvi Shaw will be given a chance prompted Rao to address it head-on. “People will obviously ask whom you want to drop, Pathum or KL. But when it comes to captains and senior players in this format, you always want experienced people like them to do well.
“He has been a part of World Cup-winning squads and came into this tournament with strong reputations. Somewhere along the way, I think he lost form. Hopefully, he comes back strongly in the next three games. It hurts when you look at the opposition and see that some of the senior players could not perform. But we need to face the reality and accept it,” he said.
Rao also addressed the bowling group’s difficulties, especially around premier wrist-spinner Kuldeep Yadav, whose lean run continued with him conceding 41 runs in three overs. A major part of Kuldeep looking pedestrian has been him missing his usual lengths, as batters freely send his overpitched and mostly short balls over the boundary ropes.
“A person like him is a bundle of experience – played and won two T20 World Cups. Sometimes a bad season happens. Everyone goes through it. I think, somewhere he lost the rhythm. I think he’ll come back. See, by playing for more than 10 years in this circuit, he knows it.
“Sometimes you can’t point and it happens in a tournament like this. We are facing it and we are at receiving end of it. Person like him, with Axar and all, if these two continue in good form, one is doing well, one is not doing, it hurts in the bowling group, especially in the middle of those. So, we are facing that failure,” he said.
Looking back across the full campaign, Rao traced a consistent thread of momentum losses that he believes has defined the season and was emphatic that DC have no one to blame but themselves.
“No, it is not only about the Punjab game. Even in the Gujarat game here, and in several other matches we needed to win, we lost important phases. That is what I keep saying. To win matches, you need to win key patches during the game. We have not done that consistently.
“If you look back, not just against Punjab but also against Gujarat, there were moments where two balls or two runs shifted the momentum away from us. Then we lost the Chennai game as well. We did win against RCB, but after that against Punjab we also had issues like injuries and concussion substitute for Ngidi.
“But we cannot keep giving excuses. We need to face the situation as it is. In a tournament like this, you cannot point to just one match. If you look back from the Gujarat game to this match, in almost every game we have not managed to win the small moments and key phases. That is why we are in this position on the points table right now,” he said.
Rao opened his press conference by lamenting the unbroken trophy drought, and closed it with the only stance left to him: cautious pragmatism and no guarantees. “Obviously in the next three games, we will see how it goes. One game at a time and obviously we will try to use bench players. When the skipper says something like that, it is something we definitely want to try,” he concluded.
Article Source: IANS