“If we drop catches, we cannot defend”
265 should have been enough.
For most of the evening at the Arun Jaitley Stadium a couple of weeks ago, there were several stories unfolding during Delhi Capitals’ clash against Punjab Kings. KL Rahul had made an unbeaten 152, the sort of innings that usually sits alone as the highlight of a match. Priyansh Arya and Prabhsimran Singh then began Punjab’s reply with the kind of violence that’s increasingly becoming commonplace in the league. There was a concussion substitution after Lungi Ngidi’s unfortunate fall, and the replacement controversy that followed. And, by the end, there was history too as Punjab completed the highest successful chase in T20 cricket.
Yet, from inside the ground, another story was just as difficult to ignore: as the ball kept going up, Delhi Capitals kept finding ways of letting it fall.
Delhi dropped six catches in the chase, three of which proved especially costly. Prabhsimran was put down on 13 and went on to make 76 off 26. Two more came off Shreyas Iyer, both put down by Karun Nair in the space of three balls. Shreyas was 28 off 20 at the time of the first reprieve, and finished unbeaten on 71 off 36. In a chase that demanded near-perfection, Delhi were nowhere close.
Following the defeat, Venugopal Rao, Delhi’s director of cricket, did not sugarcoat things. “I do not think we will win these kinds of matches when you are dropping catches at a crucial time. We need to take the chances of players like Prabhsimran and Shreyas. If we drop catches, we cannot defend.”
It was a brutal admission, but it is not an isolated failing. According to CricViz, Delhi have the worst catching efficiency in the IPL since 2022, converting only 72.6 percent of their chances till May 6, 2026. Their boundary catching is even more concerning: 70.8 percent across that period, again the lowest among all teams. This season, the decline has been sharper. Delhi’s overall catching efficiency is 64.5 percent, while their boundary catching has fallen to 51.7 percent. In simple terms, almost every second chance near the ropes has gone down.