Amit Mishra 4-fer guides Delhi to victory

Amit Mishra 4-fer guides Delhi to victory

The curse of the Chennai chase has finally been lifted as the Delhi Capitals beat the Mumbai Indians by 6 wickets and chase down their target of 138 with 5 balls to spare. Despite losing their last 5 meetings against Mumbai – including last season’s final – Delhi were incredibly professional with both bat and ball in their first game of the season at the Chepauk to win their third game of IPL 2021. The star of the show for the Capitals was leg-spinner Amit Mishra who picked up 4 crucial wickets to stifle Mumbai’s powerful
middle order and restrict the defending champions to a modest total of 137.

 As has been the case in most of the games in Chennai, Mumbai made full use of the powerplay despite losing Quinton De Kock early on. This time it was Rohit Sharma who took the attack to the bowlers and the Mumbai captain hit some captivating shots off Kagiso Rabada and Ashwin. The 5-time champions were headed towards a fighting total on this tricky pitch but a flurry of wickets in the middle overs completely derailed their innings.

Mumbai lost 5 wickets in the span of 6 overs and went from 67-1 to 84-6. The architect of their downfall was the veteran leg-spinner, Amit Mishra. Mishra opened the floodgates with the wicket of Rohit Sharma – the 7th time he has dismissed the Mumbai captain in the IPL – before getting rid of the dangerous duo of Hardik Pandya and Kieron Pollard for single digits. In spite of this middle-order collapse, Jayant Yadav and Ishan Kishan helped Mumbai to limp towards a semi-respectable total of 137 to give their bowlers something to play with.

Mumbai struck early on with the ball with Jayant Yadav picking up the key wicket of Prithvi Shaw in the 2nd over. However, despite this early breakthrough, Delhi were never in trouble in their chase and cruised to victory at Chepauk. The significant dew did make batting much easier on this slow pitch but Dhawan and Smith learned from the mistakes made by previous teams as they played risk-free cricket to help Delhi inch closer to the target.

Dhawan continued his form from the previous game to score an important 45 off 42 deliveries which took the Capitals closer to victory. The orange cap holder was eventually dismissed by Rahul Chahar before Jasprit Bumrah removed the captain Rishabh Pant which created a little tension in the Delhi dugout with them needing 22 off the last three overs. Thankfully, a couple of Bumrah no balls in the penultimate over sealed the victory for the Capitals and lifted them to 2nd in the table ahead of the Chennai Super Kings.