The Delhi Capitals will have to wait to get a guaranteed place in the IPL 2020 playoffs after they were outplayed by Kolkata Knight Riders. KKR thrashed DC by 59 runs on the back of half-centuries by Sunil Narine and Nitish Rana and later by spinner Varun Chakravarthy who floored the Capitals with his maiden five-wicket-haul, also the first of this year’s tournament.
After being put to bat, it seemed as if KKR were set for another batting collapse in IPL 2020 after being reduced to 42/3. Anrich Nortje took out Shubman Gill and Rahul Tripathi in quick succession, and when Dinesh Karthik edging Kagiso Rabada to get out caught behind, KKR were three down and in need of some repair work. In came Narine, ahead of captain Eoin Morgan and along with opener Nitish Rana stitched a century partnership.
Narine went on the attack from the get go and with Rana, scored a flurry of boundaries. Rana got into the act as well and the duo brought up a much-needed fifty run partnership. The boundaries kept coming and Rana was the first to get to his fifty – off 35 balls. Narine recorded a fifty off his own off just 24 balls and together, KKR’s fourth-wicket pair added 119 runs before the partnership was broken by Rabada, who had Narine caught in the deep for 64 off 32 balls
However, Rana held one end and creamed 13 boundaries in his innings, en route to top scoring with 81 off 53 balls. KKR collected 119 runs in the last 10 overs to put up a strong total of 194/6 on the board.
DC had the worst possible start to their innings. Under fire for his performance so far in IPL 2020, Pat Cummins took out Ajinkya Rahane – who had come in as a replacement for Prithvi Shaw – for a golden ball duck off the first ball of the match and later the in-form Shikhar Dhawan.
Shreyas Iyer and Rishabh Pant played out a few watchful overs and added a fifty-partnership Pant played some exciting strokes, but fell to the pressure of a steep asking rate to Chakravarthy. That is when the entire DC innings crumbled as Chakravarthy would go to bulldoze their middle order.
He removed Shimron Hetmyer and Iyer off successive deliveries and in his next accounted for the wickets of Marcus Stoinis and Axar Patel to become the first bowler to claim a five-for in this year’s IPL. Cummins came back to close out the innings with a third wicket as DC managed 135/9 in response.
Source: IPLT20.com