The match between Mumbai Indians and Delhi Capitals was bound to be a feisty affair. As the defending champions were looking to find a way to make it into the playoffs, the last year’s runner-ups were hoping to find some winning momentum after they suffered a loss against KKR in their previous match.
It was Rishabh Pant who won the toss and asked Mumbai to bat first. Knowing that they had suffered to put a good score batting first, but have the batting prowess towards the end to chase anything down. Coming into this game, Mumbai had made just one change, Rahul Chahar was replaced by Jayant Yadav. Delhi Capitals too had made just one change, Prithvi Shaw was back in the side, in the place of Lalit Yadav.
Mumbai’s woes with the bat continued as they lose both their openers, Rohit Sharma and Quinton de Kock early, and that too on cheap scores of 7 and 19 respectively. The out of form Suryakumar Yadav showed some great intent early on in his innings, as he plummeted Ashwin for a six in his very first over. For most of his innings, it felt as if he was in control. But then in the 11th over, trying to accelerate the scoring he threw away his wicket at the score of 33 runs from 26 balls. He was soon followed by Saurabh Tiwary and Pollard, who scored 15 and 6 respectively.
Towards the end of the innings, both the Pandya Brothers took on the bowlers and scored some exclusive shots. However, it was just never going to be enough. Hardik Pandya couldn’t manage to stay on the crease for long and Krunal Pandya was left marooned to play with the tail. He kept up the fight and hit a six on the last ball of the innings to post a respectable total of 129 in their 20 overs.
Absolutely phenomenal display of bowling today. Time now for our batsmen to guide us to 18 points 💙#YehHaiNayiDilli #IPL2021 #MIvDC pic.twitter.com/gTDfmQ2Sz3
— Delhi Capitals (@DelhiCapitals) October 2, 2021
Avesh Khan and Axar Patel were the picks of the bowlers for Delhi. They took 3 wickets each, and that too at regular intervals to keep the batters from Mumbai at bay.
Delhi’s start to the innings was nothing different than that of Mumbai. They too struggled massively to get a grip on the game, and lost 3 wickets within the first 5 overs, with just 30 runs on the board. Their captain and ex-captain however showed some sensibility. Keeping the target in mind, they stopped flaunting shots left and right. Instead, they took regular singles, searching for odd boundaries here and there. Despite losing wickets in regular intervals, Delhi Capital’s batsman Iyer’s intentions were clear. He was to take the match deep into the death over and wait for the pressure to mount on the bowlers. And that is exactly what happened. As Iyer and Ashwin started knocking the ball into spaces to take singles, the opportunities of hitting shots appeared on their own. Without losing any more wickets they took the match to the final over. Having exhausted all his pace bowling resources in search of a wicket earlier on, Sharma was forced to make Krunal Pandya bowl the final over. With just 4 runs required of the 6 balls, Ashwin decided to take his chances and hoofed the very first ball over the square leg boundary.
And breathe 😮💨
The Master and the Magician give us a double against MI in #IPL2021 🤩#YehHaiNayiDilli #IPL2021 #MIvDC pic.twitter.com/8wGoaX1Vl1
— Delhi Capitals (@DelhiCapitals) October 2, 2021
Delhi capitals won the match with 4 wickets and 5 balls to spare. Axar Patel was adjourned as the Man of the Match for his economically lethal spell of 4 overs in which he conceded just 21 runs and picked up 3 crucial wickets of de Kock, Suryakumar Yadav, and Saurabh Tiwary.
MOOOOOOOOOD 💙✨pic.twitter.com/Hffw14XmHl
— Delhi Capitals (@DelhiCapitals) October 2, 2021
