DUBAI, Oct 14: Flavour of the season Rahul Tewatia didn’t prove to be third time lucky in what turned out to be an incredible death overs performance by the Delhi Capitals pace attack in their 13-run victory in an IPL game on Wednesday.
Anrich Nortje (2/33) was breathtakingly fast bowling in the mid 150 kmph with toe-crushing yorkers while Kagiso Rabada’s (1/28) international experience proved to be pure gold dust leaving rookie Tushar Deshpande (2/37) to defend 21 runs in his debut IPL game, which he did with elan.
The result was Rajasthan Royals finishing on 148 for 8 chasing Delhi Capitals’ par score of 161 for 7 as Tewatia couldn’t hit the troika of Rabada, Nortje and Deshpande at all.
Royals lost the plot in the last five overs partly due to selfish approach from senior player Robin Uthappa (32 off 27 balls), who needlessly ran-out a genuine match-winner Riyan Parag.
While skipper Shreyas Iyer’s shoulder injury would keep Capitals on tenterhooks, 12 points from 8 games will keep them in good stead as they look to quickly clinch a play-off place. Rajasthan Royals with 6 points from 8 games stay in seventh place and are in danger of missing another play-offs.
While DC were splendid at the death, it was Ravichandran Ashwin’s artistry during the back 10 with clever variations of pace and flight that brought Delhi back in the game. Ashwin finished with figures of 1 for 17 and bowled 10 dot balls out of his 24 balls — on par with the ever-improving Nortje.
Earlier Shikhar Dhawan and skipper Iyer hit stroke-filled half-centuries but Delhi Capitals lost momentum towards the end to be restricted to 161 for seven after opting to bat first.
The last five overs of the Delhi Capitals innings yielded only 32 runs and they lost four wickets, an indication how they missed Rishabh Pant and Shimron Hetmyer.
DC had a disastrous start to its innings after opting to bat as it lost Prithvi Shaw off the first ball of the match with a gem of a delivery from Jofra Archer (3/19) that jagged back in after pitching and crashed into the middle stump after getting an inside edge.
To make matters worse for DC, Ajinkya Rahane was holed out to Robin Uthappa off Archer at mid-on an over later. (PTI)
scoreboard
Delhi Capitals
P Shaw b Archer 0
S Dhawan c Tyagi b Gopal 57
A Rahane c Uthappa b Archer 2
S Iyer c Archer b Tyagi 53
M Stoinis c Tewatia b Archer 18
A Carey c Archer b Unadkat 14
A Patel c Tyagi b Unadkat 7
R Ashwin not out 0
Extras (lb-2, w-6, nb-2) 10
Total (For 7 wkts, 20 Overs) 161
Fall of Wickets: 1-0, 2-10, 3-95, 4-132,5-153,6-157, 7-161
Bowling: Archer 4-0-19-3, Unadkat 3-0-32-2, Tyagi 4-0-30-1, Stokes 2-0-24-0, Gopal 4-0-31-1, Tewatia 3-0-23-0.
Rajasthan Royals:
Ben Stokes c (sub) Lalit b Deshpande 41
Jos Buttler (wk) b Nortje 22
Steven Smith (c) c and b Ashwin 1
Sanju Samson b Axar 25
Robin Uthappa b Nortje 32
Riyan Parag run out (Axar) 1
Rahul Tewatia not out 14
Jofra Archer c Rahane b Rabada 1
Shreyas Gopal c (sub) Lalit b Deshpande 6
Extras (b 1, lb 0, w 3, nb 1) 5
Total (8 wkts, 20 Ov) 148
Fall of Wickets: 1-37, 2-40, 3-86, 4-97, 5-110, 6-135, 7-138, 8-148.
Bowling: Kagiso Rabada 4-0-28-1, Tushar Deshpande 4-0-37-2, Anrich Nortje 4-0-33-2, Ravichandran Ashwin 4-0-17-1, Axar Patel 4-0-32-1.
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