“It’s pretty difficult to assess right now,” Ponting said. “I mean, I was almost embarrassed in our first half of the game today, giving up so many runs [272]. I think we threw 17 wides. [15] and it took us two hours to play the overs. We were two overs behind again, which means the guys bowling the last two overs can only play with four fielders outside the circle.
“There are a lot of things that happened today in this game that are unacceptable and there are a lot of things that we will talk about as a group tonight that we have to fix immediately to move forward in this tournament.
“There’s bound to be some good open discussions in the locker room tonight… No excuses on our part. We’ve been outplayed and badly, and we’ve got to come back and have a good chat about where we went wrong today.”
The Capitals did not twice review decisions that would have been overturned, but Ponting said they had bigger problems to worry about. “It’s little things. There are other bigger concerns for us, with the way we’re pitching, some of the field positions we had established and how long it’s taking us to move.
“You can’t afford to do that. No other team is doing it. We’ve been two overs down, two games in a row, so it’s more than 10 minutes down in the last two overs of our bowling innings. “Probably not It cost us today, because they would probably still get 250 anyway. But in the future of the tournament, it will definitely cost us something if we can’t fix it.”
The Knight Riders were 88 for 1 in the first six overs, thanks mainly to the pinch-hitting of Sunil Narine. Ponting said his team was never in the game: “Our start didn’t help, even thinking about the first ball of the game.” [four byes awarded despite replays indicating Rishabh Pant had dropped a thin edge from Phil Salt]. They got off to a good start in the Powerplay.
“If that happens at the start of a game, then you’re always trying to fight your way back into the game, and they didn’t allow us to do that today. They were relentless, the way they continued to attack us after that start. The youngster [Angkrish Raghuvanshi]to come in early at No. 3, I thought he played very well.
“That allowed [Andre] Russell and those guys come and play like they always do. They had wickets in hand, so they could continue to push forward strongly. They did many things very well, but we have to be very critical of ourselves. [and] of our own performance, and we have to look for ways to improve for the next game.
The Capitals are ninth in the league standings after one win and three losses in their first four games. They will face winless Mumbai Indians at the Wankhede Stadium on Sunday, who are the only team below them in the points table after three defeats in three.