‘We didn’t seize those moments’ – Hemang Badani rues DC’s missed opportunities after IPL 2026 elimination

Delhi Capitals (DC) had a promising start to the Indian Premier League (IPL) 2026 campaign, winning their first two matches. They also finished the tournament with three consecutive victories. However, in the nine matches played in between, they lost seven. On Sunday, May 24, they defeated the Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) at the Eden Gardens in their last league game and finished the season at No. 6 on the points table.

DC head coach Hemang Badani rued the missed opportunities during the season, highlighting their one-run defeat by the Gujarat Titans, failure to defend a 265-run target, and catches dropped in games against the Chennai Super Kings and the Sunrisers Hyderabad.

“There were many games where I genuinely felt that the game could go either way and we didn’t seize those moments,” Badani said in the press conference after DC finished their season with a win over KKR.

“One being the Gujarat [Titans] game, we lost the game there by one run. The [failure to defend] 264 [against Punjab Kings] is again something that you would try and seize or try to defend that score. With CSK [Chennai Super Kings], we dropped some catches, and with SRH [Sunrisers Hyderabad], we dropped some catches in the crucial time of the game,” he added.

The former India cricketer said the lack of wickets taken all season was a huge problem. Despite bowling out KKR on Sunday for a 40-run victory, DC ended with only 64 wickets across 14 games, the joint-lowest among all teams. Mitchell Starc playing only six games (11 wickets at 20.36) meant they had one big wicket-taker missing for a major chunk of the season. However, Badani stated that despite Starc’s absence in the first half of the tournament, the Capitals had the ingredients to get to the playoffs.

“You ideally want to keep taking 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. We could have been a lot better than that,” Badani said.

“Starc is obviously somebody who’s done exceedingly well in all formats and him not being available to us the first nine games does 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. Starc does make a huge difference. But I think, as a side, I genuinely feel that if we had played those small margins… it’s a game of small margins. Literally, very small margins,” he added.