Sunil Narine gave KKR an excellent start with the bat and then turned the game on its head in their favour as the defending champions beat Delhi Capitals by 14-run win. Sunil Narine‘s exceptional all-round effort brought down Delhi Capitals in a thrilling finish at the national capital to keep KKR alive in IPL 2025.
Faf du Plessis (62 off 45), Axar Patel (43 off 23) and Vipraj Nigam (38 off 19) did their bit to keep DC afloat in chase of KKR’s 204/9 but timely dents from Sunil Narine meant DC ended 14 short. Besides dismissing two of DC’s three best batters on the evening as well as Tristan Stubbs, Sunil Narine was also involved in running out KL Rahul and taking a catch to dismiss Ashutosh Sharma.
Pitch Report and Toss
Pitch Report : Â “It feels nice and wonderful climatically at the Arun Jaitley Stadium. It is not too hot, it is not too cool. We stand on pitch number 5, the Super Over was on this surface, only one in the tournament where 188 played 188. It is a pretty small ground – away to my right 63 meters, not too much of a difference on the other side just 1 (62) meter and 67 down the ground. The grass on the outfield is very very well cut.
This looks like a slightly better surface than the previous one (vs RCB). This surface looks more compact, it has a bit of a sheen on it and therefore I think the wicket will hold itself little bit more. I think they wanted to play RCB and MI on a slower surface, there was little bit more for the spinners and generally pace off the ball.
Here against KKR they have been specific to play on a slightly better surface which will not bring in the likes of Narine and Chakravarthy. I think we won’t be far off from that 188 total, decent surface here. It is not a belter by any means but if you compare it to the other pitch then we should get northwards of 163.” – inform Ian Bishop and Nick Knight.
Toss : Delhi Capitals skipper Axar Patel won the toss and chose to bowl with no changes in the Playing XI. Kolkata Knight Riders skipper Ajinkya Rahane batting first made one change bringing in Anukul Roy in the Playing XI.
Fiery start from top order batters, Angkrish Raghuvanshi powers KKR to 204 after 20 overs
KKR’s openers put on their best stand of the season – worth 48 runs – as they flew off the blocks. Gurbaz hit two fours and played out four dots in the opening over from Mitchell Starc before Sunil Narine tore into Dushmantha Chameera in the second over with two sixes and a four. Gurbaz hit the second four to cap off the 25-run over. Starc then came in for disdainful treatment from the duo. Gurbaz enjoyed a stroke of luck as a slower short ball flew off his glove over the keeper’s head.
He hit another four and a six but Starc halted the frenzy with the wicket of the Afghanistan batter. KKR’s 50 came up in just the fourth over, pushing Axar Patel to give Starc his third over inside the PowerPlay. That backfired as Ajinkya Rahane punished the left-arm quick with a pull for a six over deep square leg and flick through mid-wicket. The KKR captain then punished width outside the off-stump from Mukesh Kumar to take KKR to 79/1 in the PowerPlay. Incredibly, 64 of those came in fours and sixes.
Some of it was down to some ordinary bowling from DC fast bowlers, who frequently kept overpitching, but KKR were not complaining. Sunil Narine, Rahmanullah Gurbaz and Rahane took toll of the wayward overs to 91 in seven overs. They put together their best opening stand – 48 – of the year and their second-best powerplay – 79. The only problem for KKR was that all three got out in the mid-20s, leaving Rinku Singh and Angkrish Raghuvanshi with a repair job in the second half of the middle overs.
DC’s plan to claw back through spin was set in motion by Vipraj Nigam, who trapped Sunil Narine leg before with a fullish delivery at 97.5 kmph. Axar Patel joined in as he got his opposite number leg before in the very next over and then took out Venkatesh Iyer for another low score to leave KKR four down.
Wedged between these two dismissals were two pristine sixes from Angkrish Raghuvanshi that took KKR past the 100-run mark. He and Rinku Singh came together to pick up the pieces while Axar bowled out for 2 for 27 and Kuldeep Yadav bowled a one-run over. They still got runs off the two to maintain a scoring rate close to 10-an-over. On the other side of the time out, Rinku tipped it further as he picked up 17 off a Kuldeep over, hitting him for two fours and a big six.
Rinku and Raghuvanshi added 61 in 7.3 overs for the fifth wicket, gave Andre Russell the perfect platform, but somehow Russell spent more time watching from the non-strikers. He faced only nine balls in three overs as wickets kept falling at the other end. Only 45 came in the last five overs, turning a great start on the best batting surface in Delhi so far into just the second-highest total there this year.
Axar trusted Nigam to bowl two overs of spin at the death and the wily leggie came through. He conceded 9 in the 16th and 6 in the 18th while also dismissing Rinku on 36 off 25. Chameera bounced back tremendously from his 25-run over in the PowerPlay, by giving away only 7 runs and dismissing Raghuvanshi in the 17th.
But he ran into Andre Russell in the 19th and gave away 13. The 20th over from Starc began with a straight six from Russell but the Aussie bounced back exceptionally. Only three more runs were possible while three wickets fell off successive deliveries. KKR still managed to go past the 200-run mark.
Faf Du Plessis half century in vain as Sunil Narine-s 3-fer powers KKR to 14 runs win over DC
Rahane threw a curveball at Abhishek Porel by starting with the left-arm spin of Anukul Roy and reaped instant dividends. Porel got a four on the first ball but miscued a big shot on the second and fell. Faf du Plessis then took charge, hitting Vaibhav Arora for a straight six and then hitting three boundaries off Harshit Rana in the fourth over.
Arora sent Karun Nair packing on an LBW call via a review, but du Plessis continued to dominate the bowling by targeting the straight boundary. Varun CV started well, but Du Plessis had the rub of the green as a streaky four came off byes in the last over of the PowerPlay. KL Rahul got going with a four against the spinner too, beating Sunil Narine at short fine.
KKR might be many things but they are not conservative. They threw the new ball to Anukul Roy, in his first match of the season, to bowl at a left-hand batter, on a non-responsive pitch and with only two fielders out. He was smashed for four first ball, but an arm ball got rid of Porel immediately. Vaibhav Arora, relegated to the second over for a change, got Karun Nair lbw with a yorker. Rahul indulged in one of the most wasteful activities in any form of cricket: the quick single. So poorly judged was the run that even Sunil Narine could run him out.
Sunil Narine swung into action from the same spot in just the next over, as a sharp piece of fielding and throw caught Rahul short of a run that he called for. Axar Patel, who’d left the field towards the end of KKR’s innings after hurting himself on the field, walked out at No.5 to forge a crucial stand with du Plessis.
The South African hit Sunil Narine for a six over long-on and then laid into Varun in the ninth over with two fours and a six. While he reached a 31-ball half-century in the 11th over, Axar threw his bat around while still wincing in pain.
Du Plessis, though, was loving the pace in the pitch after his struggles in the last match. To help du Plessis out, Axar, who spent the end of the first innings off the field with an injured left hand, took down Sunil Narine like few others have. Only once has a batter hit more sixes off Sunil Narine in an IPL innings. It was also a night when Varun seemed off, not even trying to spin the ball and getting hit off high-pace deliveries.
With du Plessis taking down pace and Axar taking care of spin, it looked like a cruise when Axar hit Narine for his third six to make it 69 required off 41 with two big hitters still in the shed. Axar just happened to hit a slower short ball straight to cover, giving Sunil Narine an opening, which he burst through with a small off break to Stubbs in the same over.
He got a couple of boundaries off Andre Russell and took runs off Varun as well as Sunil Narine before falling to the West Indian spinner for a 23-ball 43 – his best score of the season. Sunil Narine then dented DC by cleaning up Tristan Stubbs in the same over. Roy then wrapped up his four-over spell with figures of 1/27, leaving the hosts to get 59 off 30 balls.
Sunil Narine continued to poke holes in DC’s chase as he bowled a fabulous over at the death worth only two runs – dismissing du Plessis and keeping impact substitute Ashutosh Sharma grounded in it. Ashutosh smashed a six off Harshit in the 17th over to keep KKR on their toes before Varun came in, in the 18th to take the wind out of DC’s sails.
Now Sunil Narine the captain also got into the act. Despite overs of pace up his sleeve, he went back to Roy. Here is why: by the end of his innings, du Plessis’ strike-rate against spin was 100 and 206.25 against pace. They bowled 29 balls of spin at him, and only 16 of pace. He scored only eight off the last 13 balls he faced. Narine was there to accept the wicket when he played the desperate shot 59 required off 29.
DC still had Ashutosh Sharma and Nigam, they took 11 off the 17th over, and Narine now trusted his spin twin despite the night he had had. And Varun responded with dot, wicket, wicket to send back Ashutosh and Mitchell Starc. Game over.
Ashutosh found Sunil Narine with his switch hit to depart and Starc skied the first ball to Gurbaz just in front of the stumps. Nigam finished that over with a six and tried to revive DC still with a four and six off Rana in the 19th over. But with 25 to defend in the last over, Russell nailed his full deliveries to catch the chasing side short.
Very little separated the two sides in two of the three phases of the game, but DC perhaps conceded a few too many in the PowerPlay that set KKR up for a big total. They got past 200 despite tripping up at the death. DC could not enjoy such a cushion at the end.
Presentations and Road Ahead
Axar Patel the losing DC skipper said : I think how the wicket was and how we bowled in the powerplay, we gave away 15-20 runs too many. We also lost a few wickets in a soft manner. The positive was how we restricted them after the powerplay, coming to the batting, even though few batters failed, 2-3 of us contributed and took it so close.
When Vipraj was batting there was hope, if Ashutosh was there then they could have repeated the first game. My skin got peeled off as I dived on the practice wickets to stop the ball, but the good thing is there are 3-4 days break and hopefully I will be able to recover.
Ajinkya Rahane the winning KKR skipper said : (on his injured hand) Not bad. I will be okay. I will be fine. (turning point of the game) After 13 overs, those two overs from Sunil. When he picked those wickets, that was the game for us. 204 on that wicket was good, but frankly I felt we were 15 runs short. Russell one over in between and good support from Anukul and Varun.
(on Anukul) History at this ground, left-arm spinners have always done well, he has been working hard, but one game at a time, we don’t want to think too far ahead. That’s always been the talk, when we were not doing well. Take confidence from this game and move forward. (on Narine) He has been a champion bowler for this franchise, he has done well on many occasions.
So good to have him and Varun, I can go back to him when we are in trouble. Coming early to the practice session, bowling hours and hours in the nets, also working on his batting. Dre also working hard on his bowling, he has been bowling good yorkers in the nets. As a team, we can back him. He has been fantastic, whenever he has bowled in this season, he has picked wickets.
Sunil Narine Player of the Match for his all round show said : It was a total team effort, we started in the middle overs with Anky (Angkrish) and Rinku with the bat. I still back myself to come back and deliver for the team. There are games when you start well and struggle and then there are games that you don’t begin well and end well. (on which wicket he enjoyed the most) It’s all wickets, it is not one wicket that I enjoy.
Not the greatest fielder, but it is always good to get a good run-out whenever possible. (on that run-out) Just swing and throw the ball as hard as possible. Self-pride. Always want to be able to give the captain an option of going for you in a pressure situation. If you want to be that player, you have to do the hard work even when there’s no training.
Sunil Narine’s figures at one point: 2.1-0-25-0. Varun Chakravarthy at another: 3-0-31-0. In a chase of 205, having restricted a rampant Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR), Delhi Capitals (DC) were in the ascendence, having punished the two main KKR weapons. And then the two of them came back with a vengeance: combined, they bowled their last 17 balls for five wickets and 12 runs to get KKR’s title defence back on track.
DC’s captain Axar Patel topped up his figures of 4-0-27-2 with three sixes off Sunil Narine despite an injured bottom hand. Narine found himself captaining KKR after Ajinkya Rahane split his finger open and vice-captain Venkatesh Iyer had been substituted out. Captaining was not the only rare thing he did: he also ran KL Rahul out with a direct hit from short fine leg. His real blows came with the ball: wickets of Axar, Tristan Stubbs and top-scorer Faf du Plessis as DC went from 136 for 3 to 190 for 9.
KKR still in contention for a playoffs spot. And with this win they pull themselves clear of the bottom three. The magic of Sunil Narine turned this game around. When Axar and Faf were batting, runs were flowing and that’s when Narine brought himself on, got the key wickets of Axar and Stubbs in one over and then of Faf in his next. That’s where the game turned and despite a fightback from Vipraj at the end, it was not enough. Rahane who went off the field after hurting his right hand while trying to field, is all smiles now.
Earlier, Rahane gave the first over to Anukul and it worked like a charm as the slow left-armer got Porel. Nair and Rahul went soon but Axar joined Faf and despite an injured left hand he batted gamely and along with Faf threatened to take DC to a win. Third loss in four games at this venue for DC this season and consecutive ones for them.
They stay on 12 points while KKR move to 9. KKR now have nine points from ten games, just staying in touch with the top six. With 12 points in ten matches, DC were now under threat of not finishing in the top two after a great start to their tournament. Yesterday RR and tonight KKR. The bottom-placed sides upsetting the ones in the top half of the table. Makes the race for the first two spots and the playoffs that much more interesting
DC have a five-day break before playing SRH in Hyderabad on May 5. KKR return home where they host fellow resurgent side RR in the afternoon fixture on May 3.
Also Read: DC vs KKR: Sunil Narine’s All-Round Brilliance Powers KKR To Nerve Wrenching 14-Run Win Over DC