The match started a hour late because of rain interruption. It was expected to be slow pitch because it was under covers and on honest note, both captains were actually sure of what will come out from it.
Delhi Capitals won the toss and elected to bowl first which proved to be a good decision. Both sides made a few changes, Delhi Capitals brought in Ishant Sharma while KKR, once again, opted to go with Jason Roy and Liton Das as their openers.
Jason Roy played a good hand, but KKR kept losing wickets at the other end. They lost three wickets in the powerplay which makes it tough for any team to make a comeback. Some poor shots by KKR batters and bowling according to the pitch by DC bowlers were the highlights of the first innings.
The whole DC team looked more settled as a bowling unit against KKR, with DC picking up 3 wickets in the powerplay and 5 in the middle overs. Ishant Sharma, Anrich Nortje, Axar Patel, Kuldeep Yadav; all had their day with the ball, picking up crucial wickets.
At the end, Andre Russell tried to show some fight back and actually collected 19 runs of the last over but unfortunately the total could only reach 126 despite the last over effort by Russell.
Chasing could have been pretty easy for DC but they made a mess out of it in the middle overs. After adding 61 runs in the powerplay, DC batting line-up started to fell apart. David Warner was more proactive, scoring 33 balls 50, his best in this IPL.
However, batters around him didn’t play decent cricket, either they took too much pressure or played high risked shots, both ways they perished one by one. Fortunate for Delhi Capitals, they did got a flying start and there was no score board pressure on them.
In the end, the match got more close than everyone anticipated. The ball was turning and gripping, so helpful for spinners that even Nitish Rana bagged two wickets.
Delhi Capitals have a deep batting line-up and this was probably the difference while chasing. It was evident that if only one batter stood there till the last over, Capitals will win the match and that is actually what happened.
Axar Patel stood there till the last over to finish it off and gain much needed two points for the team.