Two Days Ago They Chased 265. On Monday, They Were All Out in 13 Overs.
Two days ago at the same ground, Delhi Capitals batted like the game had no rules. KL Rahul made 152. A 265-run chase was completed. The whole of cricket was talking about it. On Monday night, at the exact same Arun Jaitley Stadium, Delhi Capitals were bundled out for 75.
That is cricket. Completely, mercilessly, wonderfully unpredictable.
Josh Hazlewood finished with 4 for 12 and Bhuvneshwar Kumar took 3 for 5 and between them they turned the powerplay into something that did not resemble T20 cricket at all. DC’s powerplay score of 13 runs was the lowest in a full IPL game. They were 8 wickets down before most fans had finished their first snack. Late ones missed even that chance.
It started on the second ball of the innings. Bhuvneshwar hit 18-year-old debutant Sahil Parakh’s outside edge with an outswinger on the first ball and then knocked out his middle stump with an inswinger on the very next delivery. Two balls. Gone. Then Hazlewood had Rahul, who scored 152 just 48 hours earlier, top-edging a pull for 1 run. Hazlewood removed Rahul and Sameer Rizvi off successive deliveries. Axar Patel, the captain, nicked one behind for zero. By the time Bhuvneshwar found Axar’s edge, Delhi were 7 for 5 in 2.4 overs. It was the earliest any team had lost five wickets in an IPL innings.
Only Abhishek Porel, brought in as an Impact Player after the fifth wicket fell, showed any resistance. He scored 30 off 33 balls and was the only Delhi batter to cross 20. Hazlewood ended the innings by knocking his stumps out with a yorker.
RCB chased the target with nine wickets and 81 balls to spare. Devdutt Padikkal finished unbeaten on 34 and Virat Kohli hit back-to-back sixes to seal it, becoming the first player to reach 9,000 IPL runs along the way.
After the game, DC captain Axar Patel stood at the presentation and said, “I still cannot understand what happened.” That was the most honest sentence of the evening. It was something everyone saw unfolding before their eyes but nobody can believe.
The same team. The same ground. Forty-eight hours apart. That is the only explanation cricket ever gives you.
