After 18 years, it hurts: Venugopal Rao on DC’s title drought

New Delhi, May 9 (PTI) Delhi Capitals' Director of Cricket Venugopal Rao admitted the franchise's failure to win an IPL title in 18 years "hurts", and linked the latest season of disappointment to inconsistent performances across departments.

The Capitals' playoff hopes all but ended on Friday as they suffered their seventh defeat of the season, an eight wicket drubbing by Kolkata Knight Riders.

DC and Punjab Kings remain the only two original IPL teams yet to lift the IPL trophy. The Capitals' best finish came in 2020 when they ended runners-up after reaching their maiden final. They lost to Mumbai Indians by five wickets in that edition.

"Obviously, after 18 years in cricket, it hurts. When I look back at my playing days, I always wanted to win. But now, coming into the administrative and coaching side, there is still a lot I am learning through this process," said Rao, who also played for DC between 2011-2013.

After opening the season with two wins, DC failed to build momentum, with different departments faltering at crucial stages through the campaign.

"I cannot point to just one department. In different matches, different departments have let us down. Against Punjab, we scored heavily but then dropped catches while bowling. In some games, the bowlers did well but the batters could not adapt," Rao said at the post-match conference.

Rao felt the batting group, in particular, struggled to adapt to different conditions.

"In the last two games especially, the batters struggled to adapt to the conditions. Overall, if you ask me, yes, batting has been an area where we needed to adapt better in certain conditions.

"Even in the first few games, after losing four or five wickets, we still managed to win a couple of matches. But sometimes, I think, the batting unit has let us down."

He also pointed to the team's inability to seize crucial moments during games.

"To win matches, you need to win key patches during the game. We have not done that consistently. If you look back, not just against Punjab but also Gujarat, there were moments where two balls or two runs shifted the momentum away from us.

"In almost every game we have not managed to win the small moments and key phases. That is why we are in this position on the points table right now," he added.

Delhi's struggles were compounded by the dip in form of skipper Axar Patel and spinner Kuldeep Yadav.

"With players like him (Kuldeep) and Axar, if both are in good form together, it strengthens the bowling group a lot. When one is doing well and the other is not, especially in the middle overs, it hurts the bowling unit. That is something we are facing at the moment."

With just eight points from 11 matches, the Capitals are languishing in eighth place on the table and now face a near-impossible task of reaching the playoffs.

They must win their remaining three matches and rely on other results going their way to stay in contention.

"In the next three games we will see how things work out. We will take it one game at a time. Obviously, we will look at the bench players as well if required. That is definitely something we want to try and assess going forward," he added.