Delhi Capitals vs Kolkata Knight Riders: A clinical win for DC to gain two more points

Exceptional batting performance from Delhi Capitals

On winning the toss, Kolkata Knight Riders chose to bowl first. Prithvi Shaw and David Warner opened the innings for Delhi Capitals to give them a good start with their bat. They showed terrific intent with their bat and built a 93-run partnership off 52 balls. Bowlers failed to strike any wicket in Powerplay. Varun Chakravarthy bowled Prithvi Shaw at 51 as the first breakthrough in the eighth over. David Warner stayed on the crease to build a quick 55-run partnership in 27 balls with skipper Rishabh Pant. However, Andre Russell struck the skipper for 27 runs, followed by two quick wickets of Lalit Yadav and Rovman Powell by Sunil Narine. Axar Patel and Shardul Thakur played quick smashing knocks of 22 and 29 runs, respectively, to take the total to 215/5. 

Kuldeep Yadav : The spin wicket weaver

To chase down a total of 216 runs, Ajinkya Rahane opened the innings with Venkatesh Iyer. They started off with Rahane being given out twice off consecutive deliveries to review on both occasions and survive, nick off the third ball, and not get appealed against. This was the only share of luck they enjoyed as Khaleel Ahmed dismissed both the openers for mere 8 and 18 runs. Skipper Shreyas Iyer then built on an inning with Nitish Rana. Captain was in good form as he smashed 5-fours and 2-sixes to reach his 50. Although Nitish Rana kept striking, Kuldeep Yadav broke the much-needed partnership by dismissing Shreyas Iyer (54) to keep the Capitals in the game. Khaleel Ahmed and Kuldeep Yadav kept striking wickets in quick successions to keep Kolkata out of the game. Khaleel Ahmed dismissed Sam Billings, whereas Kuldeep Yadav took Pat Cummins, Sunil Narine, and Umesh Yadav in his single over. Shardul Thakur gave the finishing touch to take wickets of the only hope remaining of KKR, Andre Russell, and Rasikh Salam. The complete team stumbled at 171 runs, giving DC a victory by a huge margin of 44 runs.

After winning the match, David Warner said, "Felt pretty good. Was a nice wicket. Kind of slowed up towards the end. Both teams nailed the execution. Slower balls into the wicket are quite tough to hit. He's great to watch. Being at the other end makes your job easy when someone does that. In this format, two opening batters never really go off at the same time. I'm happy to take the back seat, have probably done that for a few years now. Loving my time here (with DC)."

With the win, Kuldeep Yadav became Player of the Match for his 4/35. KKR have their next match with Sunrisers Hyderabad on 15th April, and DC will take on Royal Challengers Bangalore on 16th April.