Delhi Capitals Report Card for IPL 2022: A season without momentum

Over the last few years, Delhi Capitals is a team that has consistently done well in the Indian Premier League and their performances have been very impressive. Even though they are yet to win a title, still they are considered a dangerous team as they managed to make it to the playoffs every year since the 2019 season. But, this year, things didn't go according to plan for the Rishabh Pant-led side as they failed to qualify for the playoffs in the most heartbreaking manner. The game against Mumbai Indians was in their hands but errors and misjudgments on the field led to them handing the match to Mumbai Indians and their playoff spot to Royal Challengers Bangalore. 

Batting- B

However, to understand this better we will have to see how Delhi Capitals have fared whenever they have batted first. This is because, in T20 cricket, teams that win the toss more often than not opt to bat second because figuring out the par score on a pitch can be tricky these days. This is the reason why batting first becomes more of a challenge. Delhi Capitals got the opportunity to bat the first five times during IPL 2022 and scored 832 runs off 600 balls. 

The Delhi Capitals in the 14 matches that they have played have managed to score 205 boundaries and 106 sixes in IPL 2022 positioning them at the fifth spot. This shows where Delhi lacked as all the teams that made it to the playoffs managed to hit more boundaries and sixes than them.

The first six overs of the innings also known as the powerplay which is where only two fielders are allowed outside the 30-yard circle allows batters to take the attack to the opposition. Delhi Capitals have had to use multiple batters at the top of the order during the tournament. David Warner, Prithvi Shaw, Sarfaraz Khan, KS Bharat, Tim Siefert and Mandeep Singh have opened the batting for them during IPL 2022.

But, only David Warner and Prithvi Shaw were the ones who opened the innings for their side the maximum number of times. In the 12 innings that Warner opened in, he managed to score 225 runs from 146 balls. Prithvi Shaw on the other hand opened in 10 innings and scored 217 runs. 

Death Overs- C

This is where the problem arises for the Delhi Capitals as they have not done well in the death overs. The only batter that features in the list of top 10 batters for them is Rovman Powell. The West Indian batter has scored 134 runs in 63 balls during the death overs. Axar Patel is the other player who has scored 127 runs in 70 balls.

Bowling- C

Delhi Capitals' bowling can be termed as average at best during IPL 2022 as once again the top four teams that qualified for the playoffs are ahead of them. They took 88 wickets in the tournament which is not great in comparison with the top four. 

Powerplay- C

Delhi Capitals have done very poorly as a bowling unit when it comes to taking wickets in the powerplay. The Rishabh Pant-led side could manage only 18 wickets which puts them just ahead of RCB who have performed worse than Delhi in the powerplay. Khaleel Ahmed who has played 10 games has picked 4 wickets in the powerplay alongside Shardul Thakur who has the same number of wickets in 14 games. Needless to say, none of them are even close to Mohammed Shami who leads with 11 wickets.

Interestingly, Shardul Thakur and Khaleel Ahmed are on this list as well for the Delhi Capitals. However, this time Shardul Thakur in the 13 matches has picked 8 wickets in this phase of the game. Whereas, Khaleel has 6 wickets in 10 games while bowling in the final phase of the game. Shardul Thakur makes it to number 10 on this list when compared with others. Yuzvendra Chahal leads with 14 wickets from 15 games. 

Rishabh Pant in IPL 2022 has not been as impressive as the previous season. The young wicket-keeper batter looked clueless at crucial moments of the game and has been criticised for the same. During the season, his team failed to maintain momentum after winning a game. The way he used his bowlers maybe have been better than the teams that are in the bottom half of the points table but was certainly not up to the mark as we have seen him do better as a captain in the previous season.

The left-handed batter showed flashes of brilliance with the bat but was never able to live up to the hype that comes with him. He could not close out games for his side which is a major reason why Delhi Capitals failed to reach the playoffs. Yes, his team did miss reaching the playoffs by a whisker but the dropped catch during the game against Mumbai Indians and not taking DRS when Tim David was batting are glaring errors that will be hard to ignore or forget for him and the franchise as they lost their chance to reach the playoffs fourth year in a row.