Ishant Sharma took two crucial scalps in power-play while Mukesh Kumar shined with 3-14 to lead an impressive bowling show for Delhi Capitals to bowl out Gujarat Titans’ for just 89 and set up their six-wicket win at the Narendra Modi Stadium on Wednesday.
On a black-soil pitch which was used for the first time in this season, the ball kept low, came slow on the batters and gripped a bit for spinners. All of this was ideal for DC bowlers to bowl economical spells and keep GT on a very tight leash. Barring Kuldeep Yadav, all bowlers were amongst the wickets, with Mukesh clinching his best-ever bowling figures in the IPL.
DC were also very sharp in their fielding, with captain Rishabh Pant, who giggled at the toss before electing to bowl first, using his bowlers very well and taking two catches plus as many effective stumpings in quick fashion. In reply, cameos from Jake Fraser-McGurk, Abishek Porel and Shai Hope made short work of the chase to wrap it up in 8.5 overs.
The big victory at Ahmedabad sees DC jump from ninth to sixth place in points table and leapfrog GT in the process. GT being bundled out for 89 is now their lowest ever total since entering the IPL fold in 2022. Their previous lowest total in the IPL was 125, which co-incidentally also came against DC in Ahmedabad last year.
Ishant landed the first blow by getting Shubman Gill, who hit two crisp fours earlier, to drive straight to cover. Wriddhiman Saha tried to hoick across the line against Mukesh, but chopped on to uproot his middle-stump.
GT plunged into more trouble as Sai Sudharsan, who punched and creamed the drive off Khaleel Ahmed for back-to-back boundaries, was run-out by a brilliant direct hit from Sumit Kumar running in from short mid-wicket at the non-striker’s end despite making a desperate dive.
In the same over, David Miller got a slight inside-edge off Ishant and Pant dived full stretch to his left for taking a low catch, followed by getting the decision changed successfully on review. A maiden over from Khaleel followed as GT ended the power-play at 30/4.
It became 47/5 soon as Abhinav Manohar tried to push at an outside off-stump delivery from Tristan Stubbs and Pant, with a child-like smile, was quick to dislodge the bails for completing the stumping.
A ball later, impact player Shahrukh Khan stepped down the pitch to pull off Stubbs, but missed it and Pant, despite not gathering it cleanly, completed the stumping as the ball bounced off his gloves to hit the stumps.
Rahul Tewatia went for the slog-sweep against Axar Patel, but the ball turned in to trap the batter lbw. With umpire’s call showing the ball clipping side of leg-stump, Tewatia had to depart as GT continued to slide.
Mohit Sharma tried to break free, but holed out in the deep off Khaleel. Rashid Khan, who hit a four before the half-way mark, hit the first six of the innings by launching Kuldeep over extra cover for six. But in a bid to slash a short ball from Mukesh, Rashid gave a faint outside edge behind to Pant. A ball later, Mukesh castled Noor Ahmad to end GT’s innings in 17.3 overs.
Chasing a paltry 90, Fraser-McGurk got going from the word go by lofting Sandeep Warrier for six and four, before slashing twice off Spencer Johnson for the same result. His short yet cracking knock ended at 20 off 10 balls after flicking to mid-wicket off Johnson.
Warrier got his first scalp in the third over with a well-directed bouncer which Prithvi Shaw ballooned to short third man. Porel was delightful in punching, and pulling for a four and two sixes before being castled by Warrier.
Hope nailed his flicks, and flat-bat shots to pick three quick boundaries, before reverse-sweeping to backward point off Rashid. Pant continued his impressive time by flat-batting a drive off Noor Ahmed for four, before dancing down the pitch to clear long-off for six.
Sumit thumped Noor for a brace of fours, second of which came off a bottom-edge, which also turned out to be the winning runs for DC to complete the chase in 53 legal deliveries and see their net run-rate rise from -0.975 to -0.074.
Brief Scores: Gujarat Titans 89 in 17.3 overs (Rashid Khan 31; Mukesh Kumar 3-14, Ishant Sharma 2-8) lost to Delhi Capitals 92/4 in 8.5 overs (Jake Fraser-McGurk 20; Sandeep Warrier 2-40) by six wickets
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