Mitchell Marsh and David Warner put up a stand of 144 runs for the second wicket to power Delhi Capitals to a much-needed eight-wicket win over Rajasthan Royals at the DY Patil Stadium on Wednesday.
After Marsh along with Chetan Sakariya and Anrich Nortje took two wickets each in restricting Rajasthan to 160/6, he came out to lead the chase with a 62-ball 89 while Warner hanged around to play the anchor, remaining unbeaten on 52 off 41 balls.
Rajasthan drew first blood when KS Bharat departed for duck on the second ball, going for the pull but edged behind to keeper off Trent Boult. Prasidh Krishna backed it up with a maiden over while finding some swing.
Warner and Marsh were initially cautious but started to open up when the latter hit Ravichandran Ashwin for a six over long-off. The duo took a four each off Boult before Marsh brought out an excellent pick-up shot off Krishna to clear backward square leg fence. Post power-play, he welcomed Kuldeep Sen with sixes over cow corner and down the ground.
Warner had three slices of luck in ninth over off Yuzvendra Chahal – a pulled six just cleared deep square leg, a miscued loft fell short of sliding long-off at 19 and on last ball, ball brushed past leg-break with bails lighting up but weren’t separated.
After flicking Sen through square leg, Marsh reached his fifty in 38 balls with a loft down the ground off Chahal. He continued to make merry against pacers, slamming for back-to-back fours through backward point and backward square leg to keep Delhi in driver’s seat.
Warner mlked Sen through extra cover; then he skipped down the pitch but got down late to sweep Chahal through backward square leg. The duo went on to feast on short balls from Ashwin, with Warner pulling over long-on and Marsh playing the same shot over square leg to take 15 runs off the off-spinner’s final over.
After Ashwin, Boult came under thrashing from Marsh and Warner, who collected two fours and a six via the pull, with the former bludgeoning one over deep mid-wicket for a 102m six. In an attempt to get his eighth six, Marsh top-edged a slog-sweep to keeper off Chahal, falling 11 short of what would have been his first hundred in IPL.
Rishabh Pant carted Chahal for two sixes over long-off and deep extra cover while Warner finished off the chase with a pull through deep mid-wicket, taking Delhi to victory with 11 balls to spare.
Brief Scores: Rajasthan Royals 160/6 in 20 overs (Ravichandran Ashwin 50, Devdutt Padikkal 48; Chetan Sakariya 2/23, Mitchell Marsh 2/25) lost to Delhi Capitals 161/2 in 18.1 overs (Mitchell Marsh 89, David Warner 52 not out, Trent Boult 1/32) by eight wickets
(Inputs from IANS)