Bengaluru: Shreyas Iyer led from the front with a brilliant half-century as Delhi Capitals (DC) beat Royal Challengers Bangalore (RCB) by four wickets in a lopsided Indian Premier League (IPL) tie at the M. Chinnaswamy Stadium, here on Sunday. RCB have now lost all their six matches in this year’s IPL, as they remained at the foot of the points table, while Delhi bounced back after losing their last game against Sunrisers Hyderabad.
Chasing a modest 150 for victory, Delhi always had the measure of the game and eventually won with seven balls to spare. Iyer (67; 50b, 4×8, 6×2) made the most of a reprieve — he was dropped on four by Parthiv Patel in the first over off Tim Southee — to bring up his 11th fifty in the IPL as he joined hands with Prithvi Shaw for a 68-run second wicket partnership.
The 24-year old paced his innings expertly, but got out in the end while trying to pull Navdeep Saini only to get caught at short cover by Yuzvendra Chahal in the 18th over. There was a little flutter when Chris Morris (0) was dismissed in the same over and then Rishabh Pant (18) too departed in the next. But Axar Patel hit a four off Mohammed Siraj to close the game.
Off-colour Shikhar Dhawan was out for a golden duck, getting caught at point off Pawan Negi. But that was the only time RCB could make merry as Delhi never let the game slip once Iyer and Shaw got going. In the third over, Shaw displayed strokeplay of the highest order, striking Southee for four consecutive boundaries with the fifth one going down the fine leg region for four leg byes.
Southee got his line all wrong as Shaw first chipped him through deep midwicket before pulling a length ball off his hips. The U-19 World Cup winning captain, who is rated very highly, underlined his rich potential with a delicate cut off the third ball and then repeated the stroke, much to the dismay of a hapless Virat Kohli.
Delhi raced to 53/1 in six overs, but Shaw could not continue his good show as he top-edged Negi to Akshdeep Nag at deep square leg. Colin Ingram (22) and Iyer then added 39 runs for the third wicket, which took the game completely out of RCB’s control.
No excuses
RCB skipper Virat Kohli said giving excuses after every match was not the option. “We need to grab our chances when they come our way. We can’t keep giving excuses every game,” Kohli said after the match. “We weren’t good enough again. That’s the whole story of our season, so far,” the India captain admitted.
“We thought 160 was going to be competitive. Even 150 was about par. It was quite dry underneath and we knew it would be slow. Not as good as the last game. That was exactly the case in the first innings.
We kept losing wickets at regular intervals — couldn’t really explode.” Kohli also said he wasn’t happy with the way he got out. “The pitch didn’t allow us to play freely. Understanding the situation and targeting specific bowlers, I wasn’t too happy to get out to a ball like that.
If I had stayed, we could have added 25-30 more to the total. In hindsight, we can look at all this. But 160 was a competitive total,” the RCB captain said.
