Ricky Ponting: No excuses, we were just outplayed

Ricky Ponting and David Warner take questions about the DC vs SRH game on Tuesday.

Delhi Capitals coach Ricky Ponting had no qualms in admitting that they were “outplayed” in all departments in the IPL game against Sunrisers Hyderabad and refused to blame the pitch, saying it played better when his team batted. This was Delhi Capitals’ first loss of the season. Chasing 163 for win and to maintain a clean slate, DC were restricted to 147 for seven at the Shaikh Zayed Stadium on Tuesday night. Asked if the conditions made the difference in the game, Ponting insisted that SRH executed their plans better than his team. “I don’t think the conditions were that different. The grounds are bigger, there are bigger square boundaries here. (But) At the end of the day, we were just outplayed by Sunrisers Hyderabad,” Ponting said at the post-match press conference. “We were a little bit off from our absolute best. SRH had good top-order partnerships and they rotated the strike well, and a few of them made big scores. So, that was the difference in the game,” the Australian great added. Opener Jonny Bairstow’s sublime fifty was complemented by a stellar bowling effort from Rashid Khan as Sunrisers Hyderabad opened their account in the 13th edition of the lucrative league. Speaking about Delhi Capitals’ top-order batsmen, Ponting said, “If you have one of those batsman that go on and make a big score, like if one of those guys goes on and gets a 60 or 70 plus score, then we probably win the game. “When we look back now, we were only 15 runs away at the end of the game. So, you can break that down in any way that you want.” “At the Delhi Capitals, we don’t sit back and blame any one person, we lost the game as a team.” Even though captain Shreyas Iyer, who opted to field after winning the toss, said after the game that the wicket had become two-paced in the second innings, Ponting believed that the conditions were better when DC batted