Delhi Capitals Coach Ricky Ponting On Prithwi Shaw’s Comeback To The Squad
Before the tournament, Prithvi Shaw’s practice sessions had convinced Delhi Capitals’ head coach, Ricky Ponting, that he was going to have a remarkable IPL season. However, Ponting must now acknowledge that many openers in other IPL teams are performing better than the flamboyant Mumbai batsman.
After featuring in six games, Shaw has been excluded, and it is improbable that DC will reinstate him anytime soon. Ponting stated before the team’s match against Sunrisers Hyderabad on Saturday that “It’s been 13 games (including IPL 2022), since Prithvi last scored a half-century while opening the batting for Delhi Capitals. Many other players at the top of the order on other teams are performing much better than Prithvi.”
In this IPL, Shaw managed to score only 47 runs in six games. Ponting mentioned that “When Prithvi is performing at his peak, we know that he is a game-changer. That’s why he’s a retained player because we have observed that when he faces a certain number of deliveries, we win about 95% of the matches.”
However, this season, he hasn’t been able to deliver as expected. In the six games that he played, he only scored around 40-odd runs, which is not acceptable at the moment. Therefore, although it was a tough decision, we had to drop him. Our hope is that the team we field tomorrow can help us win another game. When Shaw joined this season, he had been training extensively at the NCA for several weeks, and his fitness level was quite good. Moreover, his diligence and performance during practice sessions had led me to believe that this might be his breakthrough season. However, things have not worked out for him so far. Even playing England’s Phil Salt hasn’t helped the Capitals’ cause this season.
During the pre-match press conference, Ponting expressed his view that in T20 cricket, the concept of an anchor is diminishing as most teams focus on hitting big sixes and achieving high strike rates. He observed that all teams are aiming for a strong start during the power-play and the ongoing IPL has seen a large number of sixes hit in the initial overs.
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