Delhi Capitals finally secured their first points on the board in IPL 2023 by registering a win over Kolkata Knight Riders at the Arun Jaitley Stadium on Thursday. After a rain-delayed start to the match, Kolkata Knight Riders managed 127 with Andre Russell's 38 off 31 coming at the highest strike rate of 122.58 and Jason Roy top-scoring for them with 43 off 39.
Delhi had a great bowling outing with comeback man Ishant Sharma ending as the one of the best bowlers, scalping 2 wickets for 19 runs. Anrich Nortje (2/20), Axar Patel (2/13), Kuldeep Yadav (2/15) and Mukesh Kumar (1/34) were the other wicket-takers for Delhi. In the run-chase David Warner, who was already amongst the runs but struggling with the strike rate, scored 57 off 41 and laid the foundation of the team's first win in six games.
Varun Chakravarthy, the mystery spinner of Kolkata, was the best bowler in the second innings. Anukul Roy and Nitish Rana were the other wicket-takers and even though in the end Delhi left it a bit too late for their liking, they finally got over the line with 4 balls to spare. None of the other batters barring Warner really got going for DC but contributions from Manish Pandey (21 off 23) and Axar Patel (19* off 22) got them over the line,
In the end, it was Axar who scored the winning runs and helped them secure a much-needed win after five straight losses to begin the season. DC though remain at the bottom of the table with 2 points. On the other hand, this was the fourth loss for Kolkata in six games and they find themselves at the eighth place on the table with a net run rate of +0.214.
DC will take on Sunrisers Hyderabad in their next encounter on April 24 while KKR will be locking horns with the Chennai Super Kings on April 23.