IPL 2024: 'We won't hide behind any excuses...', DC bowling coach Hopes reflects on loss to KKR

Kolkata, April 30 (IANS) After Delhi Capitals (DC) went down by seven wickets in their away match against Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) at Eden Gardens, following their back-to-back wins at home, bowling coach James Hopes said that Monday's game was a missed opportunity and the team won't hide behind any excuses for the loss.

Kuldeep Yadav's resilient unbeaten 35 off 26 helped Delhi Capitals to post 153/9 in 20 overs. However, the home side KKR chased down the target in 16.3 overs, courtesy of Phil Salt's 68 off 33.

DC have now lost six, won five in their 11 matches so far and are currently placed sixth on the points table. With three games to go, Hopes stated, "Our destiny is still in our own hands. If we can win three games and get the 16 points, that should be good enough."

"But we do have a week off now where we can readjust and see if we need to think a little differently about anything. We are going back to Delhi for two of the three games, obviously a very high-scoring venue at the moment and we're going to Bangalore as well, obviously another high-scoring venue. Tonight was a missed opportunity by us and we won't hide behind any excuses for that," he added.

Speaking about the decision of opting to bat first, Hopes explained, "The thought process behind it was, we're having some success trying to put a big score on the board and then trying to defend it, and I think we knew there wasn't going to be much dew."

He added, "We knew when we started batting we probably had to get a score of 200. We might have just aimed a bit too high and didn't understand quickly enough that the wicket was sticking for the spinners. We got two pretty good spinners ourselves, and maybe aiming for the 180 to 210 score was more realistic and more defendable."

Delhi Capitals will take on Rajasthan Royals in their next match at Arun Jaitley Stadium in New Delhi on May 7.