Delhi Capitals’ captain Axar Patel, Kuldeep Yadav and others at the Arun Jaitley Stadium, in New Delhi. (PTI Photo)
NEW DELHI: Delhi Capitals’ campaign derailed when they arrived at their home ground at Ferozeshah Kotla in the Capital three weeks into the IPL season. They had won the first four games — two at their adopted home in Vizag and two away matches.With five home matches at Kotla up ahead, it seemed qualifying for the next round would not have been a problem. Yet, they ended up winning just one match at home, that too in the Super Over against Rajasthan Royals.The most glaring issue was the lack of homework done on the home ground. When the Capitals overhauled the entire coaching staff in Oct last year, the only pre-season visit to the Kotla, by head coach Hemang Badani, director Venugopal Rao and bowling coach Munaf Patel, was in late Feb. Badani was busy coaching Dubai Capitals in the ILT20.Go Beyond The Boundary with our YouTube channel. SUBSCRIBE NOW!The management decided to hold all pre-season training at co-owner GMR’s facilities near Delhi airport. Before the tournament got underway, the players played just one practice match at Kotla before they moved to Vizag.Who’s that IPL player?With the team going through massive changes after the mega auction, familiarity with the Kotla surface became evident. Even during the season, the team chose to skip Kotla and practice at its own facilities where pitch conditions are distinctly different. When TOI reached out to Badani, he refused to comment on the planning for the season.The team management wanted drier surfaces at Kotla to aid their spin trio of Kuldeep Yadav, Axar Patel and Vipraj Singh. Kevin Pietersen, who was brought in as a mentor at the last minute, had said true batters stand out on such surfaces. Pietersen had emphatically claimed in the middle of the campaign that KL Rahul should be batting at No. 4 for India in T20Is. Yet, the management used him erratically, be it making him open the innings or bat at No. 3 and No. 4. It clearly exposed the lack of clarity. The management chose to have 40-year-old Faf du Plessis as an opener, who struggled right through the tournament.Young Abhishek Porel was pushed to open the innings after Jake FraserMcgurk had a horrid run.When Porel got used to giving the team flying starts, Rahul was made to open since he got stuck against spinners in the middle overs. The role of Ashutosh Sharma was limited to the last five overs despite him pulling off a heist in the opening match of the season.
Axar’s indifferent season, under-utilised KuldeepNew captain Axar Patel seemed to be more focused on carrying the middle-order as a batter than playing a significant role as a bowler. He clearly underbowled himself and rarely finished his spell. He ended up getting just five wickets and only managed to score 263 runs. It all came down to Kuldeep Yadav. Interestingly, Kuldeep wasn’t used in the Powerplay unlike the last season. Instead, he bowled his overs sporadically.
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