After briefly igniting hopes of a revival with back-to-back victories, the Delhi Capitals once again finished on the losing side with a seven-run defeat at the hands of Sunrisers Hyderabad on Saturday.
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Delhi had an opportunity to move out of the bottom of the table for the first time since the early stages of IPL 2023, and certainly had momentum on their side heading into their second meeting with the SRH in less than a week, this time at their Arun Jaitley Stadium, their home turf.
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The Capitals, after all, successfully defended a 145-run target against the Sunrisers on Monday earlier this week, showing great composure to dry up the scoring rate and trigger a collapse in the middle overs.
While it was the batting department that let the Sunrisers down on Monday, the same group played a key role in their seven-run victory on the weekend, albeit with a couple of tweaks to the lineup.
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For starters, batting all-rounder Abhishek Sharma asserted the fact that he truly belonged to the top of the order with a slam-bang 67 off just 36 deliveries that set the tone early on. Sharma helped the ‘Orange Army’ recover from the early dismissal of Mayank Agarwal (5), his aggressive strokeplay helping the Sunrisers end the powerplay with a run-rate above 10 despite losing two wickets along the way.
Wicketkeeper-batter Heinrich Klaasen, who had kept Hyderabad alive in their sub-150 chase on Monday with a 19-ball 31, arrived after skipper Aiden Markram and Harry Brook — shifted to the middle-order today — departing within a space of two deliveries, and took over once Abhishek was given the marching orders by left-arm spinner Axar Patel.
After multiple starts throughout the season, Klaasen finally managed to bring up his maiden IPL half-century while forging vital partnerships with Abdul Samad (28) and Akeal Hosein to help SRH finish within touching distance of 200 — a score that isn’t achieved at the Arun Jaitley Stadium too often.
Mitchell Marsh’s heroics go in vain
The Sunrisers might very well have posted a total in the range of 220 had it not been for the heroics of Australian all-rounder Mitchell Marsh, who had been having a mixed season so far but appears to have saved his best for this game.
It was Marsh, after all, who had put a lid on SRH’s scoring rate after an excellent powerplay by getting rid of Markram and Brook — both of whom have wreaked havoc with the bat this season — in a double-wicket maiden.
The Western Australian’s figures at the halfway stage of the SRH innings read 2-1-4-3. Though slightly expensive after being brought back for the remainder of his spell in the death overs, Marsh ended up registering only his second four-fer in the IPL, his figures of 4/27 miles ahead of the other DC bowlers, with only Axar (4-0-29-1) coming close in terms of economy.
And it wasn’t just with the ball that Marsh shone on the day — he blasted a 39-ball 63 and stitched a solid 112-run stand with Philip Salt after skipper David Warner was dismissed for a two-ball duck. Not only did the marathon partnership help Delhi recover from the shaky start, it put them in the driver’s seat in the middle overs with the home team appearing solid favourites at 112/1 with nearly half of their overs still left.
As had been the case with the bottom-ranked franchise on multiple occasions this season, the Capitals undid all of Marsh and Salt’s hard work with yet another batting collapse in the middle overs. And all it took to trigger the slide was a spectacular catch by Mayank Markande off his own bowling to remove Salt.
Delhi would lose a wicket in each of the next two overs, Manish Pandey getting dismissed by Abhishek for 1 and Marsh becoming Akeal Hosein’s maiden IPL wicket in the 14th. Markande would strike again, removing ex-SRH batter Priyam Garg for 12 in his maiden game for DC. And by the time T Natarajan castled Sarfaraz Ahmed, Delhi ended up losing five wickets for just 36 runs in a little more than five overs.
Markande would bowl yet another stellar spell under pressure, finishing with 2/20 in his four overs, while Bhuvneshwar Kumar and Natarajan would keep things tidy in the death overs to ensure Delhi fell nine runs short in the end. And the gulf between the two sides might have been a lot wider had it not been for Axar blasting an unbeaten 29 off just 14 deliveries, making one wonder if Delhi made yet another tactical blunder by sending Garg and Sarfaraz ahead of the in-form all-rounder, who had bagged the Player of the Match in the victory in Hyderabad earlier this week.
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Despite his team ending up on the losing side, Marsh was adjudged the Player of the Match over the likes of Abhishek and Klaasen, making his evening slightly better. And during the post-match chat, the optimist that Marsh is, he choose to focus on the positives and the road ahead instead of dwelling on Delhi’s shortcomings on the day.
“There’s a reason why the IPL is the best tournament in the world. It’s bloody hard to win games. Close games can define your season. Unfortunately we’ve been on the wrong end of a few. But our spirits are high. There’s still a long way to go in this tournament. We need to start winning but I hold a lot of belief in this group,” Marsh signed off after the game.
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