Kuldeep spun the contest Capitals’ way.
| Photo Credit: R.V. Moorthy

Kuldeep spun the contest Capitals’ way.
| Photo Credit: R.V. Moorthy

For Delhi Capitals, IPL 2026 has been the same old wine in a new bottle. The franchise seems to enter every season brimming with optimism about breaking free from the shackles of the past, but invariably falls into a familiar abyss of despair
| Photo Credit: ANI

Sunil Narine top-scored with 85 (39b, 7×4, 7×6) as Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) took apart Delhi Capitals’ (DC) bowling like cotton candy to post 272 for seven before going on to win by 106 runs at the Dr. YSR ACA-VDCA cricket stadium here on Wednesday.

Narine batted in stark contrast to his opening partner Phil Salt. With the nonchalance of, say, Deadpool or Han Solo, Narine swatted sixes and fours as if sadistically driving away mosquitoes.

On the other hand, Salt, one of the hardest hitters of the ball in modern cricket, clubbed the ball as hard as Thor would hammer anything.

While Salt hit two consecutive fours — a loft over covers and a slash past the short third man— in Ishant Sharma’s first over, Narine hit three sixes and two fours in his second. He launched a six over long off, pulled one to the deep square leg boundary, and sliced one to the extra cover boundary. Thereafter, he punished every single bowler who bowled at him.

Raghuvanshi delights

The 18-year-old Angkrish Raghuvanshi, who had begun his innings with a pull and a punch beyond the point fielder for back-to-back fours off Anrich Nortje, was methodically violent.

He was Virat Kohli-like with his cover drive and pull to the deep midwicket boundary. Yet, as if in a fit of temper, he reverse-hit Rasikh Salam for six. He hit two more sixes off Sumit Kumar and Rasikh to the deep midwicket boundary.

For the rest of the innings, KKR was in a world of funhouse mirrors as Andre Russell and Rinku Singh burned the DC ‘house of hope’ down to cinders.

In response, Capitals lost four wickets in the PowerPlay itself.

However, skipper Rishabh Pant resolutely braved on as did Sisyphus with his seemingly daunting task of rolling a boulder up a hill.

Pant (55, 25b, 4×4, 5×6), who hit four fours and two sixes off a Venkatesh Iyer over, looked like he was carrying a niggle.

Tristan Stubbs also came good for Delhi, scoring 54 off 32 balls which included four fours and two sixes each off spinners Varun Chakaravarthy and Narine.

SCOREBOARD

KOLKATA KNIGHT RIDERS

Phil Salt c Stubbs b Nortje 18 (12b, 4×4), Sunil Narine c Pant b Marsh 85 (39b, 7×4, 7×6), Angkrish Raghuvanshi c Ishant b Nortje 54 (27b, 5×4, 3×6), Andre Russell b Ishant 41 (19b, 4×4, 3×6), Shreyas Iyer c Stubbs b Khaleel 18 (11b, 2×6), Rinku Singh c Warner b Nortje 26 (8b, 1×4, 3×6), Venkatesh Iyer (not out) 5 (2b, 1×4), Ramandeep Singh c Shaw b Ishant 2 (2b), Mitchell Starc (not out) 1 (1b); Extras (b-4, lb-2, nb-1, w-15): 22; Total (for seven wkts. in 20 overs): 272.

FALL OF WICKETS

1-60 (Salt, 4.3 overs), 2-164 (Narine, 12.3), 3-176 (Raghuvanshi, 13.2), 4-232 (Shreyas, 17.2), 5-264 (Rinku, 18.6), 6-264 (Russell, 19.1), 7-266 (Ramandeep, 19.3).

CAPITALS BOWLING

Khaleel 4-0-43-1, Ishant 3-0-43-2, Nortje 4-0-59-3, Rasikh 3-0-47-0, Sumit 2-0-19-0, Axar 1-0-18-0, Marsh 3-0-37-1.

DELHI CAPITALS

David Warner b Starc 18 (13b, 2×4, 1×6), Prithvi Shaw c Varun b Vaibhav 10 (7b, 2×4), Mitchell Marsh c Ramandeep b Starc 0 (2b), Abishek Porel (Impact Player in place of Khaleel) c Narine b Vaibhav 0 (5b), Rishabh Pant c Shreyas b Varun 55 (25b, 4×4, 5×6), Tristan Stubbs c Starc b Varun 54 (32b, 4×4, 4×6), Axar Patel c sub (Pandey) b Varun 0 (1b), Sumit Kumar c sub (Pandey) b Narine 7 (6b, 1×6), Rasikh Salam c Salt b Vaibhav 1 (5b), Anrich Nortje c Shreyas b Russell 4 (6b), Ishant Sharma (not out) 1 (3b); Extras (b-4, lb-6, nb-1, w-5): 16; Total (in 17.2 overs): 166.

FALL OF WICKETS

1-21 (Shaw, 1.5), 2-26 (Marsh, 2.5), 3-27 (Porel, 3.6), 4-33 (Warner, 4.3), 5-126 (Pant, 12.2), 6-126 (Axar, 12.3), 7-159 (Stubbs, 14.5), 8-159 (Sumit, 15.1), 9-161 (Rasikh, 16.1).

KNIGHT RIDERS BOWLING

Starc 3-0-25-2, Vaibhav (Impact Player in place of Raghuvanshi) 4-0-27-3, Russell 1.2-0-14-1, Narine 4-0-29-1, Varun 4-0-33-3, Venkatesh 1-0-28-0.

Toss: KKR; PoM: Narine.

KKR won by 106 runs.

DC 87 for four

Capitals were 87 for four in 10 overs with Pant (24) and Stubbs (28) batting. Shaw (10), Warner (18), Marsh (0) and Porel (0) were back in the dugout

Riding on 20-run win over Chennai Super Kings, Delhi Capitals will start on a confident note during their Indian Premier League 2024 match against Kolkata Knight Riders.
| Photo Credit: PTI

The 20-run win versus Chennai Super Kings is an indicator of where Delhi Capitals was, is, and can be. The squad on paper and its performance in the first two matches was uninspiring and, according to assistant coach Pravin Amre, is inspired now and can do better.

That establishes that DC isn’t complacent having just outplayed the defending champion.

What caused the turnaround needn’t be examined forensically. For it may easily be attributed to its familiarity of its home ground. “We were here for two weeks (pre-season), and I think the first couple of weeks, there was a dew.

“But we were aware that there won’t be that much (dew) that day in particular, because it was windy. And I think that was an important decision to go there and bat first,” said Amre on the eve of his team’s clash against Kolkata Knight Riders here.

It’s with this kind of familiarity and the wind-supported swing that Khaleel Ahmed generates with the new ball that DC will take on the Knight Riders.

On the other hand, it might just be the right venue and match for Mitchell Starc to come good for the visitor. Starc against the DC openers would make for an interesting contest. As it would to watch DC trying to contain Andre Russell from muscling shots of mayhem.

Overall, it’s about if the newly confident DC can best a high-flying KKR.

The Teams (From):

Delhi Capitals: Rishabh Pant (c), David Warner, Prithvi Shaw, Yash Dhull, Abishek Porel, Axar Patel, Lalit Yadav, Mitchell Marsh, Pravin Dubey, Vicky Ostwal, Anrich Nortje, Kuldeep Yadav, Jake Fraser-McGurk, Khaleel Ahmed, Ishant Sharma, Mukesh Kumar, Tristan Stubbs, Ricky Bhui, Kumar Kushagra, Rasikh Dar, Jhye Richardson, Sumit Kumar, Swastik Chikara and Shai Hope.

Kolkata Knight Riders: Shreyas Iyer (c), KS Bharat, Rahmanullah Gurbaz, Rinku Singh, Angkrish Raghuvanshi, Sherfane Rutherford, Manish Pandey, Andre Russell, Nitish Rana, Venkatesh Iyer, Anukul Roy, Ramandeep Singh, Varun Chakravarthy, Sunil Narine, Vaibhav Arora, Chetan Sakariya, Harshit Rana, Suyash Sharma, Mitchell Starc, Dushmantha Chameera, Sakib Hussain, Mujeeb Ur Rahman.

Match starts at 7.30pm IST.