Delhi Capitals (DC) returned to winning ways following their 18-run win over Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) in Match 16 of the Dream11 Indian Premier League (IPL) 2020 on Saturday.
At the Sharjah Cricket Stadium, DC, after put in to bat, needed a brisk start and Shikhar Dhawan and Prithvi Shaw did exactly that. Both the openers hit a four each in the first two overs before Shaw hit a four and a six off Pat Cummins in the third over.
In the fifth over, Dhawan creamed two sixes off Sunil Narine as DC crossed the fifty-run mark. Dhawan, though got out in the final over of the powerplay as Varun Chakravarthy dismissed the left-hander for 26.
DC skipper Shreyas Iyer joined Shaw in the middle as DC continued to score freely. Shaw and Iyer hit a six and a four respectively in the eighth over as DC moved past 70.
Shaw then brought up his second fifty of the IPL in the 11th over, hitting a six off Kamlesh Nagarkoti. Iyer, too followed suit as DC sailed past 100. The pair then went after Chakravarthy in the 12th over, scoring 16.
Nagarkoti then dismissed former India Under 19 skipper in the 13th over after Shaw scored 66 off 41 balls. Rishabh Pant walked out to bat following Shaw’s dismissal.
Pant did take a few balls to settle in, but he hit three fours off Shivam Mavi in the 16th over while Iyer added one more four to his account to bring up his fastest IPL fifty in 26 balls. In the next over, Iyer hit a six and two fours off Cummins’ bowling as DC approached 190.
While Pant two fours and a six in the 18th over bowled by Andre Russell, he got out in the same over after slamming 38 off 17 deliveries. Iyer, though continued his juggernaut as he took on Chakravarthy in the penultimate over, hammering two sixes and a four as DC surpassed 220-run mark, with Iyer moving to 88 off 38 balls.
Although the DC skipper was in a touching distance of a hundred, Russell did a fine job to keep Iyer away from strike in the final over and conceded just seven runs. However, DC went on to register the highest total of the IPL 2020.
KKR needed a brisk start in the chase, but they lost Sunil Narine in the second over after Anrich Nortje disturbed the timber.
Nitish Rana hit two sixes off R Ashwin in the third over before Shubman Gill hit a four and a six in the 4th over. Rana and Gill then took KKR close to 60 before the powerplay came to an end.
DC, though, did a good job and did not give away more than 13 runs in the next two overs and it helped them to get Gill’s wicket in the 9th over.
While Russell, who joined Rana in the middle, hit Rabada for a four and a six in the 10th over, the right-arm pacer dismissed in the big-hitting West Indian all-rounder in the same over.
KKR, then lost Rana, who scored 58 off 35 balls, and Dinesh Karthik on successive deliveries in the 13th over bowled by Harshal Patel. KKR were 122/6 when Cummins got out in the 14th over.
KKR needed a miracle to pull off a stunning win and Eoin Morgan and Rahul Tripathi kept their side in the game. In the 17th over of the chase, KKR hammered 24 runs off Stoinis, with Tripathi hitting 3 sixes and a four.
Rabada ran in to bowl his final over and the 18th over of the innings and it went for 23 runs, with Morgan hitting the right-arm pacer for three sixes and Tripathi hitting a four.
After scoring 47 runs across 17th and 18th over, KKR brought the target down to 31 runs from the last two overs. However, Nortje, bowling the 19th over, conceded only 5 runs and ended Morgan’s 18-ball 44-run blitz.
While Tripathi hit a four off the first ball of the last over, Stoinis and DC managed to limit KKR to 210/8 and won the match by 18 runs. (IPL)
