New Delhi, May 7
Delhi Capitals earned a hard-fought 20-run win over Rajasthan Royals to stay alive in the IPL playoffs race as home spinners Axar Patel and Kuldeep Yadav played a key role in the team’s victory in the must-win contest.
56 Sanju Samson has broken the record for playing most IPL matches as captain for RR, going past Shane Warne
We have lost three games but all have been tight. Results can go either way but we need to keep the fine-tuning going and come back as IPL doesn’t allow us to relax. Sanju Samson, RR captain
Yet again, it was Jake Fraser-McGurk and Abhishek Porel’s coruscating display of power-hitting that took DC to a challenging 221/8.
Chasing a stiff target to secure their place in the playoffs, the Royals were going strong but once skipper Sanju Samson (86 off 46 balls) was dismissed in the 16th over, their innings lost momentum. They ended up at 201/8.
“Lot of positive to take from each match, regardless of whether we win or loss. As always, Kuldeep delivered. I think our score was close to par,” said DC captain Rishabh Pant.
Wrist spinner Kuldeep (2/25 in 4 overs) and left-arm spinner Axar (1/25 in 3 overs) exhibited impressive control over line and length that put the brakes on Royals’ scoring rate in the middle overs.
“It’s very important to bowl on a good length, that’s the challenge when you bowl at the death. I felt it was gripping when I bowled googlies. Then bowled seam-up to see what the batters were doing, not be predictable,” said Kuldeep, who was named the Player of the Match.
Earlier, young Australian batter Fraser-McGurk (50 off 20 balls) continued with his splendid form while Abhishek Porel contributed 65 off 36 balls. Tristan Stubbs chipped in with a useful 20-ball 41.
“We have lost three games but all have been tight. We have been playing great cricket throughout,” said Samson. — PTI
Brief scores
DC: 221/8 in 20 overs (Fraser-McGurk 50, Porel 65; Ashwin 3/24) vs RR: vs 201/8 in 20 overs (Samson 86; Kuldeep 2/25, Khaleel 2/47, Mukesh 2/30)
Monday’s result
SRH: 173/8 in 20 overs (Head 48; Hardik 3/31, Piyush 3/33) vs MI: 174/3 in 17.2 overs (Suryakumar 102*; Bhuvneshwar 1/22)
KKR players face logistical trouble
New Delhi: Kolkata Knight Riders players had a harrowing experience as they were forced to spend a night in Varanasi after their flight from Lucknow to Kolkata was diverted multiple times due to bad weather. Following their massive 98-run win over Lucknow Super Giants on Sunday, the Shreyas Iyer-led side left on Monday evening for Kolkata at 5:45pm. The team was scheduled to arrive at 7.25pm. But the charter flight had to be diverted to Guwahati first and then to Varanasi after adverse weather conditions made it impossible to land the plane in Kolkata.