Opener troubles, missed chances haunt Delhi Capitals' Badani

Delhi Capitals (DC) began their IPL 2025 campaign with four wins in a row. They lost just the one match in their first six outings. But the 59-run loss against Mumbai Indians (MI) on Wednesday was their fifth defeat in last six completed matches. That meant they missed out on the last playoffs spot.

Hemang Badani, DC head coach, said that one of the reasons they were knocked out was their opening batting pair. Even in their successful run at the start of the season, DC used three opening pairs: Faf du Plessis and Jake Fraser-McGurk, Fraser-McGurk and KL Rahul, and Abishek Porel and Fraser-McGurk. By the time their campaign ended, they had used a further four new opening combinations. DC's openers averaged 19.23 in the season, the lowest among all teams.

"A settled opening pair is only possible when your opening pair gives you a start," Badani said in Mumbai. "If you don't get starts, you are bound to make changes to try and fill that gap, fill that void. While other sides have had great powerplay with the bat, we haven't had those, unfortunately. Opening at the top was a worry for us."

Karun Nair was brought in in DC's fifth match of the season and scored a scintillating 40-ball 89 against MI in Delhi batting at No. 3. That included a stellar takedown of Jasprit Bumrah, whom he hit for 18 in the last over of the powerplay. But in the six games Nair played after that, he had three single-digit scores including two ducks, and a best of only 31. He was also pushed up to open the batting in two of those matches.

Similarly, Rahul began the season by batting at No. 4 but was shuffled up and down - from opening spot to No. 3 and back again to No. 4. In bowling coach Munaf Patel's words, Rahul then "asked for" the opening spot against Gujarat Titans in Delhi, scored an unbeaten 112 and opened again in Mumbai on Wednesday.

"You ideally want people to read the game and play. Most players have been around long enough," Badani said. "Even someone like Karun Nair, even though he's made a comeback into the IPL after two-three years, he's a seasoned campaigner. You don't necessarily have to literally spoon-feed them. With some of the younger boys, you still have to try and make sure that they are given the right information, they are being told and given role clarity.

"But primarily, the guys who've been around long enough, you just try and help them with match-ups - who can you take down? What's an ideal number that we're looking at in the powerplay? What do you think is a good score in the powerplay on this surface? And how do we go about getting those numbers? That's primarily the conversation you would have with guys like Faf and KL and Karun and guys who've been around long enough. You don't necessarily teach them how to bat."

On Wednesday, MI scored 27 off Mukesh Kumar's penultimate over and 21 off Dushmantha Chameera's last over to set DC 181 to win. It was not a surface that was conducive to strokeplay. Suryakumar Yadav hit three sixes and two fours to finish not out on 73 off 43, while Naman Dhir hit two fours and two sixes in his unbeaten eight-ball 24 in the final two overs of the innings.

Badani agreed that that is where DC lost momentum.

"Until then, the 18 overs that were bowled by us were consistent, were spot on," he said. "Our execution wasn't to our expectation in the end. Those 48 runs in the last two overs were a big difference. [We should] be able to read the game better, be able to understand that the surface was slower. We could have gone to the cutters and wide yorkers. Even if you look to nail yorkers at this level, you would expect bowlers of international level to come and nail those balls. And if you don't do that, players like Surya who's been around long enough, will punish you."

Badani also rued DC missing regular captain Axar Patel, who was down with a bad flu for the last few days and did not even travel to the ground. In Axar's absence, DC played only the two wristspinners in Kuldeep Yadav and Vipraj Nigam. And their batting line-up had only one left-hander - Porel - in the top eight.

"Someone like an Axar Patel would have made a massive difference to us," Badani said. "Left-arm spinners on this surface, somebody of his calibre, also with his left-hand batting, could have also countered [Mitchell] Santner. But as I said, the better side won, and I wish them well."

Looking back at the season, Badani also lamented on the near-misses that cost them the qualification.

"For me, [the IPL is] a marathon," he said. "We had a great sprint to start with, where we had four [wins] at the top. We had five wins in six games and that is a great place to be. Since then, we've just struggled and not found that win.

"To some extent, we've also had games where we genuinely felt that we could have won, and we just didn't finish those games. Like for instance, even [against] Mumbai at Delhi, we were cantering along and lost the game from there. Even against KKR, we had to get 60 in six [69 off 41 balls] with seven wickets in hand, two set batters [du Plessis and Axar].

"If you want to win this competition, if you want to go to the playoffs, you want to ideally finish those games. And if you don't, then you have no one else to blame but yourself."

DC's last league game is against Punjab Kings in Jaipur on May 24.