New Delhi: A stellar all-round performance by Delhi Capitals (DC) players secured a hard-fought victory over Gujarat Titans (GT) by a narrow margin of four runs at the Arun Jaitley Stadium in Delhi on Wednesday in the ongoing Indian Premier League (IPL) 2024.
Chasing 225-run target GT faced an early setback when skipper Shubman Gill was dismissed for just six runs with the team score at 13. Sai Sudarshan and wicketkeeper-batter Wriddhiman Saha then formed a crucial partnership, taking the team past the fifty-run mark in the fourth over.
Sudarshan reached his half-century in the 10th over, while Saha contributed 39 runs off 25 balls before being dismissed by Kuldeep Yadav in the 10th over. Despite a valiant 65-run innings by Sudarshan and a quickfire 55 off 23 balls by David Miller, GT struggled to maintain momentum and lost wickets at regular intervals.
In the final overs, GT faced a challenging task, requiring 19 runs off the last over for victory. Despite Rashid Khan’s valiant efforts, GT fell short, scoring only 14 runs and losing the match by a narrow margin of four runs.
Earlier in the first innings, Rishabh Pant and Axar Patel’s vital half-centuries steered DC to a competitive total of 224 for the loss of four wickets after a shaky start against GT.
Pant and Patel staged a remarkable recovery for Delhi Capitals after Sandeep Warrier’s three wickets within the powerplay left them rattled. Both Pant and Patel rebuilt the innings with composed half-centuries.
Jake Fraser-McGurk and Prithvi Shaw had provided Capitals a blistering start. However, Warrier’s impactful spell halted their momentum by dismissing Fraser-McGurk for 23 and later accounting for the wickets of Shaw and Shai Hope, restricting Capitals’ early surge.
Earlier, GT skipper Shubman Gill won the toss and elected to bowl first against Rishabh Pant-led Delhi Capitals. After winning the toss GT captain Shubman Gill said, “We will bowl first. Looks like a good wicket, we’ve been chasing well in the last couple of games. Means a lot to me (on playing 100 IPL matches), have come a long way, still a long way to go, but the focus is on today’s match. It’s cricket, there’ll always be ups and downs, you want to play the way you’re good at. We’re playing the same side.”
DC skipper Rishabh Pant at the toss said, “It’s a good toss to lose, we would have batted first anyway. We just spoke at keeping things simple, just doing what we can do for a longer period of time. This wicket looks a bit slower than the last game, dew plays a big factor here, there was no dew last time, hopefully it’ll not be there tonight as well. Two changes – David Warner sits out and Hope replaces him, Sumit Kumar replaces Lalit Yadav.”
Delhi Capitals (Playing XI): Prithvi Shaw, Jake Fraser-McGurk, Abishek Porel, Shai Hope, Rishabh Pant(w/c), Tristan Stubbs, Axar Patel, Kuldeep Yadav, Anrich Nortje, Khaleel Ahmed, Mukesh Kumar
Gujarat Titans (Playing XI): Wriddhiman Saha(w), Shubman Gill(c), David Miller, Azmatullah Omarzai, Rahul Tewatia, Shahrukh Khan, Rashid Khan, Ravisrinivasan Sai Kishore, Noor Ahmad, Mohit Sharma, Sandeep Warrier
