Delhi Capitals bowlers bowled remarkably well to help their team get yet another convincing win in the IPL on Friday as they outplayed Royals by 46 runs at the Sharjah. With not even 100 up on the board, RR's top six batsmen were sent back to the pavilion by the dazzling DC bowling attack. Shimron Hetmyer top-scored for Delhi Capitals with 45 while Marcus Stoinis made valuable 39.
Kagiso Rabada started the proceedings for Delhi Capitals with the white-ball. Jos Buttler took the strike for his team chasing 185 for the win with talented Yashasvi Jaiswal at the other end. The duo started the innings steadily but Rabada still kept a tight grip on them without giving them much room in the early overs.
Ashwin came up with the first big breakthrough for his team by sending Buttler back to the pavilion. The star English batter looked to go big but failed to put in the right amount of power behind his shot and ended up giving Dhawan a catch at square leg.
Rajasthan Royals recovered well after Jos Buttler's early departure as Smith and Jaiswal continued to play a mix of aggressive and steady strokes. At the end of powerplay, Royals were 41 for loss of one wicket.
RR skipper was looking dangerous in the chase but a fabulous catch from Shimron Hetmyer in the deep helped Anrich Nortje remove the hard-hitting Aussie batter for 24 in the ninth over. With this, Smith and Jos Buttler both were now gone for the Royals and DC certainly had their noses ahead in the game as they had managed to get just the start they were looking for.
Rajasthan Royals faced another major setback in the match by losing early wickets in the middle overs. First, Sanju Samson (5 runs off 9 balls) got out for his fourth consecutive single digit score in the IPL, courtesy Marcus Stoinis. The next to follow him was Mahipal Lomror (1 run off 2 balls) as veteran spinner Ashwin picked his second of the night by getting his leading edge that landed in Axar Patel's hands at short extra cover.
Rajasthan faced a major collapse and DC were now in the driver seat with Marcus Stoinis now removing Yashasvi Jaiswal for 34 to get his second wicket of the night.
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Everything was going right for the Delhi Capitals in Sharjah. Rabada seemed bored of picking wickets, so he decided to take a superb diving catch in the deep off spinner Axar Patel's delivery and Andrew Tye had to depart for 6. With not even 100 up on the board, RR's top six batsmen were sent back to the pavilion by the dazzling DC bowling attack.
Just few deliveries later, Kagiso Rabada removed Jofra Archer to put Delhi Capitals on top in Sharjah and just 3 wickets away from another convincing win.
Rahul Tewatia (38 runs off 29 balls) in the end played some fiery strokes but his innings was too late and in the end DC won the match by 46 runs.
Earlier, RR had become the first team to restrict a team under 200 Sharjah. Delhi Capitals had scored 184 runs after losing 8 wickets in 20 overs, giving Rajasthan Royals a target of 185 runs for victory. Hetmyer (45) scored the most runs for Delhi Capitals. Apart from him, Marcus Stoinis contributed with 39 runs.
RR's Jofra Archer took 3 wickets for 24 runs in 4 overs. Karthik Tyagi, Rahul Tewatia and Andrew Tye got one wicket each. Ty was the most expensive bowler for Rajasthan. He was smashed for 50 runs in 4 overs.