DC’s Director of Cricket, Sourav Ganguly, compared DC’s win to his first run in Test cricket. After the Delhi Capitals (DC) suffered five consecutive losses, they finally tasted victory in the Indian Premier League (IPL) 2023 season. In a thrilling low-scoring match against the Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) at the Arun Jaitley Stadium in Delhi on Thursday, April 20, DC won by four wickets. After winning the toss, KKR were bowled out for 127, and DC got home in 19.2 overs, led by skipper David Warner’s 57 off 41 balls.
After Delhi Capitals’ first victory in IPL 2023, he said during an interview on iplt20.com:
“We are happy to get off the mark. I was sitting there in the dugout and thinking it was like getting my first Test run 25 years ago. You’ve seen a cricket match, and I think we were on the luckier side today [Thursday].”
When asked whether or not this was Delhi’s most impressive bowling performance for the season, Sourav Ganguly responded that the bowlers had been doing their job as expected and that the concern lay with the batting. He said:
“We bowled well before as well this season. Even the game before, at Bangalore, to restrict (RCB) them to 170, I thought we did well. Against Mumbai also, we defended well. So the bowling has been good. These are good pitches, fast outfields, so it’s hard on the bowlers. But the problem is the batting. We need to go back and look at ourselves and see how we can bat better.
“The bowling was exceptional. The spinners bowled well. The quicks bowled well. [Anrich] Nortje has outstanding for us. Good to see Mukesh [Kumar] and Ishant [Sharma] turn up and do well with the ball.”
“We have a lot of work to do”: Ganguly on DC’s batters
Delhi fell from 61/1 to 111/6 in pursuit of 128 runs, ultimately relying on a 19-run cameo from Axar Patel off 22 balls to clinch a win unconvincingly. Ganguly acknowledged that the batting needed improvement and said:
“We have a lot of work to do. I wouldn’t say it’s an inexperienced batting line-up. But we’re not playing well because most of these guys have played lot of T20 cricket. It’s probably time to look and find a way to bat better.
“We work hard with the boys. Be it Prithvi [Shaw], Manish [Pandey], Mitch Marsh. They have been important players and around for a while for their respective teams. They also know that it’s time to put up a better batting performance.”