Twitter Reactions: Delhi Capitals' juggernaut continues in IPL 2021 as they brush aside Royals

Capitals didn't play their best game with the bat but their bowlers were top notch again.

By Aditya Gajanan Kukalyekar verified

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4 Min Read

Delhi Capitals
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Delhi Capitals. (Photo Source: Twitter/IPL)

Delhi Capitals have more or less made it to the playoffs with a brilliant win over the Rajasthan Royals in Abu Dhabi. It was the exceptional bowling attack of DC who did the job their team defending 154 which looked under-par at the halfway stage. The Royals never looked in the game with their batters not stepping up in a crucial game and ending up significantly short of the target eventually.

Earlier, the Capitals lost Shikhar Dhawan and Prithvi Shaw early after being put in to bat first. The likes of Chetan Sakariya and Kartik Tyagi bowled well in the powerplay to tie the batsmen. At 21/2, things looked tough for the Capitals. Shreyas Iyer, however, joined hands with Rishabh Pant to rebuild the innings. After getting his eye in, Iyer began taking some risks and seemed to have found his mojo back completely.

He punished anything lose from the opposition bowlers as the third wicket stand added 62 runs to set the platform for the batsmen to come and finish. Rishabh Pant was looking good at 24 before Mustafizur Rahman came on for his second spell and get his wicket. Soon Rahul Tewatia flummoxed Iyer who was on 43 off just 32 balls.

Shimron Hetmyer then had to stay in the middle with Marcus Stoinis missing out in this match. The Caribbean southpaw played a few lusty strokes as well to smash a quickfire 28 runs but got out at the wrong time. With 21 balls to go and no real finisher to come, the likes of Lalit Yadav and Axar Patel had to play cautiously to make sure there is no collapse.

They scored 14* and 12 respectively to take the Capitals beyond 150 and finish on 154/6 in their 20 overs. It was a brilliant effort from the Royals to restrict them with Mustafizur leading the way with 2/22.

Samson fights but Royals bottle the chase

At the halfway stage, the 155-run target didn’t look intimidating. But it soon did for the Men in Pink who lost three quick wickets. Yashasvi Jaiswal, Liam Livingstone and David Miller were all back in the hut in 4.2 overs of the innings. While the pace of Anrich Nortje and Avesh Khan undid the openers, Ravi Ashwin’s guile led to Miller getting stumped in the fifth over.

At 17/3, the target of 155 runs looked far away for the Royals. The time was to rebuild the innings for them and that is what Sanju Samson and Mahipal Lomror did. However, a slow start coupled with another slow 31-run stand meant that the required run-rate had already jumped above 10.

With pressure increasing Lomror got out and Riyan Parag’s poor season didn’t get any better as RR were left reeling at 55/5. The only hope for the Royals was now Samson who had got his eye in and he started to open his arms now with not much left in the tank.

Samson is pleasing to the eyes when he gets going they say. And once again, on the day, it was no different as the Royals skipper took calculated risks to notch up his half-century off 39 balls. He single-handedly brought the equation down to 64 off the last four overs. Well, DC had Avesh, Nortje and Rabada left to bowl in the death overs and to smash them for 16 runs in an over is a near impossible task.

The trio lived up to the reputation despite Samson trying his best as the Royals could only reach 121 runs in their 20 overs losing the game by 33 runs.

Here’s how Twitter reacted:

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IPL 2024Rajasthan RoyalsDelhi Capitals