After a solid batting partnership from Sunil Narine (32-ball 64) and Nitish Rana (53-ball 81) with a fabulous 56-ball 115-run 4th wicket stand in the first innings, Varun Chakravarthy tonight bagged his maiden five-wicket haul in T20s to help Kolkata Knight Riders thump heavyweights Delhi Capitals by 59 runs on Saturday at Abu Dhabi. Varun also became the first bowler in IPL 2020 to claim a five-wicket haul and also attained the best bowling figures this season. Before this, Mumbai Indians' Trent Boult's 4/18 against CSK on Friday was the previous best bowling figures in IPL 13.
Pat Cummins yet again proved why he is the costliest bowler in IPL 2020 as he cleaned up both openers, Shikhar Dhawan (6) and Ajinkya Rahane (0), cheaply to put DC in real trouble. First, Cummins struck with a peach of a delivery on the first ball of the innings as he trapped Ajinkya Rahane right in front of the stumps for a first-ball duck and later he departed in-form Shikhar Dhawan, who had scored back-to-back tons for his team in his last two games
Young guns Shreyas Iyer and Rishabh Pant took charge of Delhi’s chase after facing those early blows. The duo steadied their team's ship by bringing the much-needed 50-run partnership, but it hadn't come as quickly as it was required.
The equation went down to Delhi Capitals needing 131 runs in the last 10 overs to win with the required run-rate increasing. The pressure got the best of Pant and Morgan's move to introduce Varun Chakravarthy into the attack worked as he cleaned up Pant with his second ball for a 33-ball 27.
The run-rate almost reached 2 runs per ball and seeing this Hetmyer was forced to play risky shots. The Windies hard-hitting batter tried to big off Chakravarthy for a maximum, but failed to put the right power behind his stroke and had to return back to the pavilion for a 5-ball 10.
DC now required 100 runs in 39 balls. Skipper Shreyas Iyer soon followed his partner Hetmyer on the very next ball and departed for 47 to help Chakravarthy get wickets on consecutive balls.
Varun Chakravarthy closed was on fire and bagged his fourth wicket to get Marcus Stoinis out or just six. The spinner in his final over cleaned up Axar Patel for nine to claim the first five-wicket haul of IPL 2020. Pat Cummins got his third wicket by dismissing Rabada. The last over was bowled by Ferguson who too picked a wicket cleaning up Tushar Deshpande for 1 runs. DC were restricted to 135/9 by KKR as they won the game by 59 runs.
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Earlier, Delhi Capitals skipper Shreyas Iyer won the toss and elected to bat bowl first against Kolkata Knight Riders against Abu Dhabi. After Delhi Capitals' lethal pace duo of Kagiso Rabada and Anrich Nortje struck early to get rid of Dinesh Kartik, Shubman Gill and Rahul Tripathi for almost nothing on the scoreboard, a good counter punch from Sunil Narine (32-ball 64) and Nitish Rana (53-ball 81) with a fabulous 56-ball 115-run 4th wicket stand powered Kolkata Knight Riders to 194/6.
Both Rana and Narine smashed quick fifties to take Kolkata Knight Riders out of trouble and give their team a strong base as the duo added 100-plus runs in quick time.
Rana who was sent to open today after failing to deliver at number three in his previous game, responded in style by scoring his 10th IPL half-century off just 35 deliveries. His partner, Sunil Narine, who returned to KKR after getting reported for a suspected bowling action, scored a 24-ball half century right away batting at number five position.
Delhi Capitals (Playing XI): Shikhar Dhawan, Ajinkya Rahane, Shreyas Iyer(c), Rishabh Pant(w), Marcus Stoinis, Shimron Hetmyer, Axar Patel, Ravichandran Ashwin, Kagiso Rabada, Tushar Deshpande, Anrich Nortje
Kolkata Knight Riders (Playing XI): Shubman Gill, Sunil Narine, Nitish Rana, Rahul Tripathi, Eoin Morgan(c), Dinesh Karthik(w), Pat Cummins, Lockie Ferguson, Kamlesh Nagarkoti, Prasidh Krishna, Varun Chakravarthy