IPL 2017: Rahul Dravid feels close losses during the season cost the Delhi Daredevils

What’s the Story?

Delhi Daredevils mentor Rahul Dravid has said that close losses were one of the reasons that really cost the side in IPL 2017, but admitted that despite not making it through to the Playoffs, there were a lot of positives the franchise could take from the competition.

"I think if you look at the last couple of years, I feel from the two years before that, we have shown some improvement and we have looked to go in the right direction but it's not been enough,"

"You need eight wins to qualify in this tournament, we got seven last year, six this year and I think the close games we lost probably cost us. That's the nature of the tournament, there are some good teams and you need to win those games, there were probably seven or eight games that were close and we probably won only two of them, five or six we lost and you can't afford to lose that many. You need to get in the right side of the result of a few of them and we couldn't. Obviously, it is a little bit disappointing but there were positives as well right through the season,” Dravid said at the post-match press conference, after his side’s loss to the Royal Challengers Bangalore.

In case you didn’t know...

The Daredevils, like has been the case for a number of years, failed to make their way into the last four of the IPL, finishing sixth in the points table and missing the bus again in trying to win their maiden title.

They, along with the RCB and KXIP, will go down as the three teams from the original eight teams that started off in the Indian Premier League to not win the competition, even once.

The heart of the matter

The 44-year-old further went on to add that the franchise looked to back some of the younger Indian players because they had lost a couple of key foreign stars and did not have the kind of experience that they would have liked in the Indian batting department.

He also spoke about Sanju Samson, who he felt after having made a century at the start of the season, would have liked to have shown a bit more consistency in his performances.

What’s next?

Obviously, the key question, apart from whether the Daredevils can make season 11 count, is whether Dravid, Paddy Upton and others will stay here or move back to the Rajasthan Royals, where they had been before the franchise was suspended a couple of years back, as the franchise looks set to return back next year.

Author’s take

Dravid does make a valid point about the close losses and how it affected his side’s chances of progressing, but when he looks back at the campaign, he will rue certain decisions like perhaps using Rishabh Pant in a better way or promoting Chris Morris a bit higher etc. Maybe next year, the Daredevils will learn from the errors and come back stronger.