Brief Scores: Royal Challengers Bengaluru (77/1) beat Delhi Capitals (75) by 9 wickets at Arun Jaitley Stadium in New Delhi.
Before the literal dust storm descended upon the Arun Jaitley Stadium in New Delhi, Josh Hazlewood and Bhuvneshwar Kumar conjured a tempest of their own with the new ball to blow the Delhi Capitals away. The Australian speedster snared four wickets while Bhuvneshwar, ageing like a vintage wine, provided a masterclass in why he remains one of the game’s premier new-ball exponents. His three-wicket burst effectively dismantled the Delhi Capitals’ batting order before it had even found its feet.
Exactly two days after posting a formidable 264 (and somehow losing), Delhi Capitals subsided to a measly 75, which was half of what KL Rahul alone managed on Saturday. It marked the 12th lowest total in IPL history and the third lowest ever for the Delhi franchise.
RCB required a mere 6.3 overs to hunt down the target of 77. Virat Kohli ensured the Delhi faithful were duly entertained with two towering sixes, one of which carried RCB past the finish line in one of their most emphatic victories to date. Jacob Bethell set the tempo with a blistering 10-ball 20, as Delhi’s new-ball pairing of Kyle Jamieson and Dushmantha Chameera failed to find anything resembling the venom shown by their RCB counterparts. On a surface that settled under the rollers during the mid-innings break, the chase was a formality; before the pitch could play any more tricks, the contest was over.
POWERPLAY RIOT AT KOTLA
At 13 for 6, the lowest powerplay total in the competition’s history, the Capitals were in genuine peril of eclipsing RCB’s infamous record for the lowest IPL total. Disaster was only narrowly averted thanks to Impact Player Abhishek Porel, who chipped in with a gritty 30 from 33 balls.
Nevertheless, 75 all out in 16.3 overs made for grim reading. For the duration of the innings, as the Delhi batters staged a revolving-door procession to and from the pavilion, the packed Kotla crowd found solace in chanting the name of their local hero, ‘Kohli, Kohli.’ It was a way to stay insulated from the sporting carnage unfolding in the middle.
How does a pitch transform so drastically in 48 hours? It was no great mystery. There was a touch of spice on offer, though the primary catalyst was a drier surface that offered genuine assistance to the disciplined. The sheer class of Hazlewood and Bhuvneshwar proved an insurmountable hurdle for a Delhi side seemingly suffering from a hangover after their 264-run exploit. They arrived expecting another run-fest and were instead met by a hurricane.
While the bowling was sublime, the Capitals’ shot selection was poor; several batters appeared trapped in a mindset of “going hard” to overcompensate for what happened on Saturday – a Punjab Kings chase of 265 in just 18.5 overs.
HOW DID THE PITCH CHANGE?
The Delhi batters were caught entirely cold by the prodigious swing extracted by the opening duo. Even Bhuvneshwar, who now dons the Purple Cap with 14 wickets, admitted to being startled by the conditions.
“I was definitely surprised, especially given how the wicket played in the last match with 250 plus in both innings. To see the ball swing away like that was unexpected, and we knew we had to make the most of it by attacking the stumps and looking for wickets,” Bhuvneshwar said during the mid-innings break.
BHUVI-HAZLEWOOD MASTERCLASS
The very first ball of the evening set the tone. Facing the first delivery of his IPL career, 18-year-old Maharashtra prospect Sahil Parikh, in for Pathum Nissanka, was castled by a sensational inswinging yorker. It was the sort of delivery that would have accounted for a seasoned veteran, let alone a debutant facing a master craftsman.
The venom of that delivery sent a shiver through the Delhi dressing room.
In the following over, Hazlewood smelt blood. He deployed a sharp bouncer to remove the in-form KL Rahul, who was hurried by the extra bounce and could only top-edge a pull shot. Sameer Rizvi, who has been searching for form since his early-season heroics, was then lured into a loose drive on his very first ball. Hazlewood, operating with a relentless full-length cross-seamer, drew the edge and found the waiting gloves of the wicketkeeper.
Hazlewood found himself on a hat-trick, but Tristan Stubbs survived the initial scare to keep the Australian out of the record books for the moment. However, Stubbs’ reprieve was short-lived. Bhuvneshwar, keen to exploit the movement, teased the South African with a magnificent outswinger. Stubbs, playing with hands too far from his body, paid the ultimate price as the edge flew through to the keeper.
Captain Axar Patel arrived at number six with the local supporters praying for a rescue act. He looked utterly bewildered against Bhuvneshwar, who was hooping the ball both ways. After one nervy leave, Axar was beaten by an inswinger that grazed the woodwork, though the bails miraculously stayed put. His luck ran out the very next ball; a ripper of a delivery swung late, took the edge, and jetted off the surface with too much pace for the captain to handle.
By the end of the third over, Delhi were reeling at 8 for 5. The misery continued. Hazlewood then dismissed Nitish Rana with a searing bouncer that climbed steeply after pitching. Rana, attempting to sway out of the line, took his eyes off the ball and managed only a thick outside edge.
The scoreboard read a calamitous 9 for 6 at the end of the fourth over.
That was the cue for Delhi to deploy their Impact Player in a desperate bid to steady the ship. David Miller and Abhishek Porel did their level best to survive the six-over onslaught from Bhuvi and Hazlewood. They even endured a brief dust storm after the eighth over which halted play for five minutes. Visibility plummeted, but for the Capitals, the game had already disappeared into the gloom.
Owing to the oppressive heat and humidity, Rajat Patidar opted not to bowl his pace aces for a fourth consecutive over, allowing Miller and Porel to cobble together a 35-run partnership. The resistance ended when Miller threw his wicket away to Rasikh Dar, holing out with a clumsy cross-batted swipe in the ninth.
Porel remained defiant at one end, but the introduction of spin on the dry surface proved decisive. Krunal Pandya trapped Kyle Jamieson plumb in front, before Suyash Sharma, operating from around the wicket, castled Kuldeep Yadav. Suyash finished with remarkable figures of 1 for 7 from his four overs, including 20 dot balls.
The final blow was poetically delivered by Hazlewood. The Australian returned to end Porel’s lone crusade with a stinging yorker. Delhi’s innings had begun with a yorker; it transitioned into pure suffering, and it ended, fittingly, with the woodwork shattered once more.
With three consecutive defeats, Delhi Capitals have slid to seventh in the standings. Meanwhile, RCB sit securely in second place with 12 points from eight matches, trailing the table-topping Punjab Kings by just a single point.
