Delhi would love to have most players back next season: Ponting

Delhi Capitals head coach Ricky Ponting is aware that it might be possible to retain only three to four players before IPL's mega auction but given a chance he would love to enter the next season with almost the same team he has now.

The Australian great though had no qualms in admitting that his team was outplayed by Kolkata Knight Riders in the second IPL qualifier in Sharjah on Wednesday.

"I'd love to keep everyone," he quipped.

"To be honest, we have got... it is a terrific group of people at the Delhi Capitals, playing staff and the coaches have done an amazing job for the last couple of seasons. And I think our performances sort of speak for themselves there."

After being restricted to 135 for five, Delhi Capitals staged a great comeback with the ball, before losing the thrilling contest by three wickets.

"We are just disappointed that this season has finished the way that it has. But yeah, so obviously we know that we will probably only be able to retain maybe three or four players."

"So, a lot of players will go back into the auction, and then I will be doing everything I can certainly to bring as many people back into the Delhi Capitals family as possible, because as I said, it's been incredibly enjoyable, for the last three seasons, really for me.

"To bring everyone or most of the guys back together again, will be certainly a goal of mine," the former Australian skipper said.

Ponting singled out the lack of enough runs as the biggest factor in the team's defeat, saying the Powerplay was the difference.

Rahul Tripathi struck a stunning six in the penultimate delivery after opener Venkatesh Iyer's brilliant half-century to take KKR into Friday's IPL final against CSK.

"To be totally honest, looking back at this whole season, I think today really is the only game that I feel we have been outplayed in," Ponting said.

"We didn't bat well enough today, we didn't get enough runs in the Powerplay, we lost wickets regularly through the middle of our batting innings."

KKR needed 10 runs from the last two overs but Anrich Nortje removed captain Eoin Morgan (0) with the final ball of the 19th over, leaving the Knight Riders seven runs to get from the last over.

Shakib Al Hasan (0) and Sunil Narine (0) were dismissed off successive deliveries by Ravichandran Ashwin in the final over, before Tripathi sealed the contest with one ball to spare with a straight six off the Delhi spinner.

"If it wasn't for (Shimron) Hetymer and Shreyas (Iyer) at the end, we weren't looking anywhere near 130, so we have been outplayed, so we will talk about that when we get back into the rooms after this.

"It is disappointing for us to certainly finish the way that we have," said the former Australian World-Cup winning skipper.  

"Yeah. Look, I think the power-plays in both innings was probably the difference in the game. I don't think we got enough in our power play with the bat.

"I think we were 37 at the end of our power-play, which was probably, you know, eight to 10 runs short of where we wanted to be," he added.