Mumbai, 22 May

The failure to find a settled opening pair throughout the season is one of the reasons why Delhi Capitals have not progressed into the IPL knockout stage despite an impressive start, says head coach Hemang Badani.

Delhi Capitals crashed out of the race to reach the IPL playoffs with a 59-run loss to MumbaiIndians on Wednesday, which was also their fifth defeat in last seven matches with one victory and a washed out contest.

Delhi Capitals tried out as many as seven partners with no considerable success in 13 matches, and will now take on Punjab Kings in their last game on Saturday.

"A settled opening pair is only possible when your opening pair gives you a start. If you don't get starts, you are bound to make changes to try and fill that gap, fill that void," Badani told the media here.

"If you go back and see the other sides which have had great starts and great powerplays with the bat, we haven't had those starts and hence we've had to make those changes."

"We had Jake (Fraser-McGurk) at the top earlier, it didn't work for us. Abishek (Porel), then we had Faf (du Plessis), then we also had Karun (Nair) to come in. It's just that we haven't had anyone really making sure, ensuring that we get off to good starts,” he added.

Badani continued, “Our opening at the top was a worry for us and I think one of the reasons why we haven't gone forward.”

KL Rahul's performance has perhaps been the only bright spot in the DC lineup with the India wicketkeeper-batter scoring 504 runs and 13 matches so far.

Badani said Rahul is not taking any additional pressure after he right-hander was dismissed for 11 having moved to the opening slot.

“They are all seasoned campaigners. They've been playing IPL from season one. So I don't necessarily think that he is taking any extra added pressure. He understands that we are at a position where we have to win this,” he said.

“It's just one of those days where, again, our opening didn't really give us those starts,” he added.

The former India player also rued Delhi Capitals not being able to finish a few matches which they could have in the past, recalling the loss to Mumbai Indians in New Delhi which marked the revival of the five-time winners in the league.

“We had a great sprint to start with. We had a massive start to start with. If I'm not mistaken, (we had) five wins in (first) six games. That's a great place to be,” he said.

“Since then we've just struggled and we've not found that win. To some extent we've also had games where I genuinely felt that we could have won and we just didn't finish those games.”

“For instance even (against) Mumbai at Delhi, the game (in which) Karun Nair got 90 odd, we were cantering along and we lost the game from there. Even the game against KKR, we had to get 60 in six (overs) with seven wickets in hand, (and we had) two set batters."

Badani added, “We missed out there. You want to ideally finish those games. 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 finish those games, then you have no one else to blame but yourself.”