Delhi Daredevils' performance this season surprised Ricky Ponting

Ricky Ponting in a recent no holds barred interview disclosed that the Delhi Daredevils’ performance this season of the IPL has surprised him the most. Ponting nitpicked about the constant chopping and changing in the side, which eventually hindered their progression towards the top half of the table.

Daredevils perhaps had the strongest bowling line up in the league this season with their four-pronged pace attack of Pat Cummins, Kagiso Rabada, Chris Morris and Mohammed Shami. Rahul Dravid and co. invested their trust in young Indian talents in the batting department featuring the likes of Shreyas Iyer, Sanju Samson, Rishabh Pant and Karun Nair.

Corey Anderson, Angelo Mathews, and Marlon Samuels also handled the all-round department in the squad. With the kind of arsenal they had in the squad, Ponting seemed perplexed about the position they ended up in the points table. Daredevils ended up at the 6th position in the table with 12 points in 14 games as they won 6 and lost 8 of their league matches.

What Surprised Punter?

“Delhi have surprised me I picked them as a bit of a smoky for the tournament because the last few years they’d put together some really strong squads. They’ve got just about all the best young Indian batsmen with Sanju Samson, Rishabh Pant and Shreyas Iyer. They’ve just missed something there,” stated the former Australian skipper according to cricket.co.au.

“They’ve surprised me that they haven’t been a bit more competitive this season. They haven’t been able to really nail down a consistent line-up. They’re one of these teams that likes to mix and match and change to try and get the right matchups, but that just doesn’t work in this format of the game,” he described.

Ponting further illustrated that management should look to assign different roles to the players instead of changing the personnel. “It’s not that they change just one player either, they will make four or five changes per game. When you’re trying to train guys to play specific roles in a line-up, you can change a team by just giving them a different role. You don’t actually change the personnel, you change the role in that squad of 11 players,” added the 42-year old Tasmanian.

He concluded by stating that Daredevils have been engaged in chopping and changing their lineup rather than creating flexibility in the playing eleven.