Delhi Capitals assistant coach Shane Watson has heavily criticised the Delhi District Cricket Association for the pitches at their home ground and described it as one of the big reasons for the team’s poor performance. The Capitals are currently placed ninth on the table with just five wins and eig ht losses.
Throughout the season, the Capitals have fallen prey to underwhelming performances from marquee players and overall inconsistency. Hence, talking ahead of the game against Chennai Super Kings, Watson was reflecting on the team’s performance, Watson talked about the poor quality pitches at the Arun Jaitely Stadium.
As quoted by the Indian Express, Watson said, “The pitches here in Delhi haven’t been great, to be totally honest. They probably are great if you’ve got a lot of Indian top-order batters. Then that wicket will suit that team. But that’s not the make-up of our squad.”
Further Watson talked about how if the team was playing consistently on a ‘good traditional cricket wicket’, the Capitals would have had better performances. He then spoke on how the pitches presented for the 2023 season weren’t suitable for their foreign players, who found it difficult to get used to the wicket.
“As we saw the other night, if we’re able to play on a good traditional cricket wicket, where the ball goes through nicely, doesn’t really turn a lot, we saw exactly what can happen from our batting line-up,” he said. “We’ve got Prithvi Shaw with the overseas players (at the top). That’s our strength. But unfortunately, when we come to Delhi, due to the amount of cricket that’s been played on this wicket block, it’s very dry. There’s not much grass, if any. Which, unfortunately, exposes the set-up of our batting in particular.”
Reacting to this a DDCA official, as per the Indian Express, stated that the board was given prior notice to ignore the franchise’s instructions regarding the pitches. The official was quoted, “We’ve been given clear instructions not to listen to the franchise. (The absence of grass) is owing to the heat that has increased. The wicket was tougher in the 2019 season. If you look at the average scores from that year, they were somewhere around 135-140.”