Kolkata, May 25 : Delhi Capitals head coach Hemang Badani admitted his side failed to seize some key moments throughout their IPL 2026 campaign, which ultimately cost them a playoffs berth for the fifth successive year.
DC ended the season on a high through a consolation 40-run win over Kolkata Knight Riders at the Eden Gardens. “I think it’s more the case about winning the moments. There were many games that I genuinely felt that there’s a time in the game that the game could go either ways and we didn’t seize those moments. I can speak of many games. One being the Gujarat game, we lost the game by one run. “The 264 (against Punjab Kings) is again something that you would fancy yourself to defend that score. Even against CSK, we dropped some catches. With SRH, we dropped some catches at a crucial time of the game. Even with us batting, we didn’t many a times hold on to our wickets.
We’ve lost too many in clusters, if you go back and see the stats,” said Badani at the conclusion of the game. He also pointed to the lack of wickets across the season as a major factor, with DC finishing joint-lowest among all ten teams with 64 scalps in 14 matches. “And as a bowling side, you ideally want to pick a lot of wickets. If you see the stat with sides taking wickets, I think we’re right at the bottom. “Even in a game like this, you ideally want to keep picking wickets and keep putting pressure on the opposition. And I think a culmination of all of it is the reason why we are at 14 points. And we could have been a lot better than that,” added Badani. On Mitchell Starc’s limited availability hurting DC, Badani stated, “He’s obviously a fabulous player. He’s somebody who has done exceedingly well in all formats.
And him not being available to us in the first nine games did hamper our progress. But I think on the whole, even without him, we had our moments. “Even without him, we had our chances to qualify. And yes, Starc does make a huge difference. But I think as a side, I genuinely feel that if we had played those small little margins, it’s a game of small margins, literally very small margins. And if we had seized those little margins, we would have still been alive in the tournament.” Speaking on DC missing the playoffs for the second straight time under him, Badani stated, “I can’t talk about the last five years because I wasn’t involved with the franchise at that time. But I can talk about the last two years. As I said earlier, you have to play 20 overs of consistent cricket. I believe we haven’t played those 20 overs of consistent cricket.
“If you look at last year, we missed out by one point. We were at 15 points. So if we had won one more game, we would have qualified. If you look at this year, we finished with seven wins. We got 14 points and the fourth team that qualified, they got 16 points. “Again, it’s a question of one game. Those one games are the small margins that I’m speaking of. You have to be alert. In this tournament, you have to give your all on every ball and I think we are not doing well there,” he concluded.