IPL 2023: Sunrisers Hyderabad vs Delhi Capitals, Match 34 - Talking Points and Who Said What?

Delhi Capitals registered a last-over victory against Sunrisers Hyderabad in the 34th clash of the ongoing Indian Premier League 2023 at Hyderabad's Rajiv Gandhi International Stadium. The visitors got the better of the hosts as they made the game theirs by a margin of seven runs. 

Winning the toss, Capitals' skipper David Warner put themselves to score the first runs and had a disastrous start to their campaign as wicketkeeper batter Phil Salt was sent off on a golden duck by T. Natarajan, who trapped him lbw on the third ball of the innings. Warner couldn't do much either as the overall highest run scorer of the team departed after a 21-run innings, played off 20 balls. However, equinumerous scores of 34 from Axar Patel and Manish Pandey helped DC put up a 144-run total on the board. The hosts who were looking good to chase the target down with ease early on in the innings, lost their middle-order in a cluster to eventually fall short of the target by 7 runs. However, Mayank Agarwal's brief innings came as the silver lining for the orange army as he played a 49-run knock to drive SRH's chase. For Capitals, Axar Patel and Anrich Nortje claimed two wickets each.

Let's look at the Talking Points from the game -

Washington Sundar's triple-wicket over derailed Delhi's batting order

Offspinner Washington Sundar, who was otherwise having an ordinary outing in the tournament, showed why SRH had been putting their money on him time and again, as he finally returned impressive figures in the clash against DC. At a point of time when Capitals were stable with a score of 57/2, Sundar was handed the ball by skipper Aiden Markram and as things eventually unfolded, the 23-year-old dismantled the DC batting order by sending the middle order packing with a streak of three wickets in the eighth over.

He first got rid of David Warner in the second ball of the over after the Australian was caught behind by Harry Brook and then followed it up with the wicket of out-of-form batter Sarfaraz Khan who was dismissed on 10, courtesy of Bhuvneshwar Kumar's catching efforts. He finally concluded the over with the wicket of Aman Hakim Khan who mistimed a shot to hand Abhishek Sharma a sitter. 

Mayank Agarwal's innings radiates hopes for SRH's out-of-colour batting order

Apart from a few scattered knocks of valour, the SRH batting lineup has otherwise looked off-colour throughout the course of the ongoing tournament. Mayank Agarwal, who was deemed to be one of the batting mainstays for the team, had failed to live up to the buildup with his string of low scores. His ordinary run in the top order also saw him being demoted to no. 6 in SRH's previous game against Chennai Super Kings but that failed to yield dividends either.

However, returning to his favourite opening spot, Agarwal finally played an impactful innings as the 32-year-old fell just one run short of his well-deserved half-century but managed to take care of the proceedings in the initial half of the innings. His 49-run innings came off 39 balls, which included seven boundaries. 

Axar Patel and Kuldeep Yadav spin web to save Delhi's day

While SRH looked comfortable cruising to chase down the target, Delhi's spin twins Axar Patel and Kuldeep Yadav gave continuous breakthroughs to bring Delhi back in the game. Thanks to their efforts, Hyderabad were reduced from 69/1 to 85/5 within three overs.

Axar Patel sent back the dangerous-looking Mayank Agarwal before returning to get rid of skipper Aiden Markram in the 15th over. Meanwhile, Yadav caught Abhishek Sharma off his own bowling efforts to shift the momentum towards the visitors. While Patel finished with economical figures of 2/21 in four overs, Yadav was strong on the economical front as well, giving away only 22 runs in his four-over spell.

Losing captain, Aiden Markram said

Not good with the bat. Not enough intent, not excited to win a game of cricket unfortunately. We have to go back and see how we can be free and be better. It is difficult, you can say all the right things but guys have to buy into it. We want to play a certain brand of cricket and if we get it wrong doing that then we'll sleep a lot better at night. Tonight we lacked intent, unfortunately we are letting us down because of a lack of intent. I would love to do that to be honest, something I quite enjoy doing, guys need to work hard [on motivating the team]. Incredibly proud of them, kept it pretty simple and used the conditions really well. Our bowling does not deserve to be on the losing side but a small bit of positivity I suppose.

Winning captain, David Warner said

Player of the Match, Axar Patel said

(What gave him more joy, his batting or bowling returns?) 2/21 since I scored 34 in 34 so the two wickets were more important. I ordered for coffee and I left the glass like that, when three wickets fell in one over. Pandey and I discussed we need to take it as deep as possible. (On the surface) It was slow, the ball was coming off slowly. I felt that me and Kuldeep can tie up the batters on this surface, so it was enjoyable. (Whose wicket did he enjoy more, Mayank's or Markram's?) I keep getting wickets in the form of knocking over batters but getting a wicket off the slower one (Mayank's wicket) was more enjoyable.