Mumbai : Delhi Capitals defeated Punjab Kings by 17 runs in an IPL match here on Monday to inch closer towards play-offs qualification as they climbed to fourth place in the points table. Batting first, Mitchell Marsh struck a fine half-century to take Delhi Capitals to 159 for 7 after a sudden middle-order collapse. Marsh scored 63 off 48 balls with four fours and three sixes while Sarfaraz Khan (32 off 16 balls) also made useful contribution.
Shardul Thakur, Player of the Match, said, ‘ I always like to perform in crunch times, the last two games were important and I always feel happy when I rise to the right occasion. 6th over was a big over where I got two wickets, they were cruising and in both innings fast bowlers were going for runs in the powerplay and as soon as the powerplay ended, the runs stopped. The spinners came in and did a good job. As a bowling unit we were trying to hit good areas, but after 12th over there was dew which is why we did not bowl Kuldeep Yadav. I’m preparing well and whenever I got the chance, trying to put some score and hoping I will continue my run with the bat.’
Rishabh Pant, DC skipper, said, ‘ Throughout the tournament we have been losing one, and winning one game. That’s something we wanted to change as a team and we got it. The change of pace from Livingstone was good, so it’s part and parcel of the game. Can’t be too hard on Warney (Warner) because he has been playing fantastic throughout the tournament. We saved him (Kuldeep) for back half, then the dew came in so we didn’t want to give a massive over for someone. It’s a 50-50 call.
The only process was to take it deep, with spinners getting help and we saw the same pattern happen with the other team as well. We gonna assess the wicket and see how it goes (next game). We will get to know in few days time (regarding Prithvi Shaw’s injury update).’
Mayank Agarwal, PBKS captain, said, ‘Between 5-10 we lost too many wickets and that’s where we lost the game. It was definitely chaseable for the batting we have, and the wicket wasn’t as bad as it seemed. There’s still a match to be played. Want to go out there and play the best cricket. Still haven’t played our best cricket and look forward to doing that in the last game.
Mitchell Marsh, said, ‘A great win. You can never judge a wicket until both teams bat. The spinners turned the game in the middle overs and 160 ended up being enough. I just look to get as many as I can in the powerplay with the bat before it starts spinning. For the last 18 months, I’ve had that mentality in the powerplay. I thought it was a really good partnership between Sarfaraz and me. He played some amazing shots.
Our innings was sort of a start-stop with wickets. Credit goes to the bowlers; they were outstanding. It was just about getting a partnership going with the bat. We weren’t able to quite do that throughout our middle overs tonight to get up to 180. Even 15 or 20 runs can change momentum. [On back to back win] We spoke about that today. It’s been one of those seasons where we’ve been stop start. It’s about peaking at the right time. We’ve got one more to go. We know if we win that, we’ll be in the finals. There’s a lot of belief and talent in this team.’