Delhi Capitals' Axar Patel (centre) celebrates after taking the wicket of CSK's Shane Watson (in yellow) in Dubai on Friday.
Delhi Capitals are in this competition to win it. The Shreyas Iyer-led young side made that crystal clear when they romped to a comfortable win over a lacklustre Chennai Super Kings, who made mistakes aplenty throughout the game played in the IPL 2020 in Dubai.
Not taking lessons from the last two matches, where the chasing side has lost the match, CSK skipper MS Dhoni opted to bowl first hoping they will reap benefit in the second innings. However, that didn’t turn out to be the case as CSK fell short by 44 runs while chasing Delhi Capitals’ 176, which was down to a classic batting effort from the very talented Prithvi Shaw. The opener scored an eye-soothing 64 runs of 43 balls.
His effort was nicely backed in the second innings by Axar Patel (1/18) and Kagiso Rabada (3/26) in the powerplay and death overs respectively to gave no chance to CSK.
At the beginning of first innings, Shaw had a steady opening of a 94-run stand with Shikhar Dhawan, allowing the side to start on a strong foot. The partnership, which lasted till 10.4 overs, saw Shaw in the role of the aggressor as he shot nine boundaries and a solitary six.
Dhawan (35 off 27) used his experience to hold on to the other end as the duo nullified the CSK bowling – led by Deepak Chahar and Sam Curran — in the powerplays to score 39 runs.
The situation wouldn’t have been so if not for the unlikely mistake made by MS Dhoni, who failed to hear the fainted of edge made by Shaw in the very first over, as the catch went unnoticed.
The partnership was broken by Piyush Chawla, who caught Shikhar plum lbw in the 11th over. Chawla, who proved costly in the loss against Rajasthan Royals, was in control of his line, length and variations on the day as in his very next over he claimed the prized scalp of Shaw.
The spinner allowed Dhoni to make amend for the mistake as he had made an easy stumping of the right-hander with DC scoreboard showing 103/2 two balls in the 13th over. Chawla finished his spell with 33/2.
Left-arm spinner Ravindra Jadeja and pacer Deepak Chahar proved to be ineffective as they went for 44 runs and 38 runs in their four overs respectively.
Curran was picked among the pacers as he gave away just 27 runs while claiming the wicket of Shreyas Iyer (26 off 22) in the 19th over while just giving away just four runs. Iyer’s effort still came handy as he stitched a 58-run fifth-wicket stand with Risabh Pant.
The left-hander, on the other hand, carried the bat till the end of the innings as he retained 37 off 25 as DC managed 175. Marcus Stoinis remained not out at 5 off 3 on the other end.
Chasing 175, trouble found CSK in the powerplay as Iyer’s plan to give a second over resulted in Shane Watson’s (14 off 16) soft dismissal in the fourth over with just 23 runs on the board as the openers struggled to get going. Two overs later, Murali Vijay (10 off 15) followed as well as he mistimed Anrich Nortje’s delivery straight into the hands of Kagiso Rabada on short long-on.
The two dismissals took the momentum away from CSK as runs dried up post the powerplays with DC spinners provided no pace to CSK no. 3 Faf du Plessis and no.4 Ruturaj Gaekwad. Just 10 runs came off the next three overs with Axar Patel being the pick among bowlers with tidy 18/1 by the time wrapped his quota in the 10th over. But not before he ensured the run out of Gaekwad (5 off 10), who was involved in a mixup with Faf, at the non-strikers end after a clean throw from keeper Pant.
DC pacer Avesh Khan, who endured an off day with 42 runs in his quota of overs, was robbed off a wicket in the 12th over when Faf’s poor choice of shot saw Shimron Hetmyer saw dropped easiest of catches over cover-point. The let-off allowed the South African to build a 54-run stand for the fifth wicket with Kedar Jadhav (26 off 21), trapped lbw by Nortje, before skipper Dhoni came in.
But it was too late as the team managed 32 runs in the remaining 5 overs with Dhoni managing just 15 runs from 12 balls he faced, while rest of the CSK lower order had no role to play.
