Following Kuldeep Yadav’s (4/14) and Mustafizur Rahman’s (3/18) super bowling, David Warner and Rovman Powell played outstanding knocks to help Delhi Capitals defeat Kolkata Knight Riders by four wickets in Match 41 of the IPL 2022, played at the Wankhede Stadium here on Thursday.
Kuldeep Yadav bowled brilliantly against his former team, as if he had something to prove. He dismissed KKR captain Shreyas Iyer (42), Baba Indrajith (6), Sunil Narine (0), and Andre Russell (0) to finish with 4/14, breaking the KKR batting line-up. It was unfortunate that he did not get to bowl his fourth over and thus could not complete a fifer.
Mustafizur claimed three wickets in the 20th over, dismissing Nitish Rana, Tim Southee, and Rinku Singh – Rana and Southee on consecutive balls.
Chasing the target, Delhi reached 150/6 in 19 overs thanks to crucial knocks from David Warner (42 off 28 balls) and Rovman Powell (33 not out off 16 balls), winning the match with six deliveries to spare.
Rishabh Pant’s team got off to the worst possible start when Prithvi Shaw was caught and bowled for a first-ball duck in the first over. Mitchell Marsh holing out to backward square leg for 13 runs off seven balls, becoming Harshit Rana’s first IPL victim.
David Warner (42) and Lalit Yadav (22) added 65 runs for the third wicket before the Australian was out, attempting to negotiate a difficult bouncer on the middle from Umesh Yadav and holing out to Sunil Narine just two yards inside the rope. Despite the struggles of the other batters, Warner appeared to be in command, hitting Tim Southee to two boundaries in the fourth over and two boundaries off successive deliveries by Nitish Rana in the ninth over.
After that, Delhi Capitals lost their way a little as Lalit Yadav and skipper Pant fell in quick succession, but Axar Patel kept them in the hunt with a 17-ball 24 that took them to 36 off 30 deliveries at one point. Patel got run out at an important moment of the match too when he was caught short going for a second run as Shreyas Iyer managed to throw the ball quite efficiently after running at the boundary.
However, Rovman Powell saw them through in the end, as he hit a match-winning 16-ball 33 to help the Delhi team record their fourth win and move to eight points. KKR remained in the eighth position with six points after nine matches played. Delhi with eight points are currently in sixth position.
(Inputs from IANS)