Delhi Capitals beat Rajasthan Royals by 13 runs

Royals flatter to deceive as Iyer team post their fifth win

Dubai: Delhi Capitals got the better of Rajasthan Royals by 13 runs to post their fifth win in the IPL league match on Wednesday. Royals tasted their fourth defeat to slip to the seventh spot. Delhi retained their second spot with ten points.

Chasing 162 for a win, JC Buttler set the tempo with a 9-ball 22 and put on 37 in three overs with his English teammate Ben Stokes. Anrich Nortje gave the important breakthrough by castling Buttler’s stumps. Skipper Steve Smith continued his poor form as R Ashwin took a return catch. Stokes looked in good touch before he was deceived by a slower one by debutant Tushar Deshpande and was held in the deep.

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Left-arm spinner Axar Patel, who has bowled the middle overs brilliantly for Capitals, cut short Sanju Samson’s sweet innings with a ball that came in to disturb his stumps. Riyan Parag was run out thanks to a horrible mix up with Robin Uthappa. Capitals could have had the dangerous Tewatia but the left-hander was dropped by Nortje at fine leg.

But Nortje made amends by dismissing Uthappa. It was left to Tewatia to repeat his heroics but was choked by Nortje and Rabada, who were fast and accurate. DC cruised home comfortably in the end.

Earlier, Shreyas Iyer hit stroke-filled half-centuries but Capitals lost momentum towards the end to be restricted to 161 for seven.

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. But then skipper Iyer (53 off 43) joined hands with Dhawan (57 off 33) shared 85 runs for the third wicket off 55 balls to keep DC’s momentum going after the early jolts.

Dhawan got 39th fifty in the IPL off just 30 balls but soon departed while trying to force the pacer. After Dhawan’s dismissal, Iyer upped the ante with some lusty hits and in the process got to his fifty off 40 balls in the 15th over bowled by Jaydev Unadkat, that yielded 17 runs, including two sixes.

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