Rohit Sharma has widely been credited for the game-changing decision to bring Impact Substitute Karn Sharma into the attack against Delhi Capitals. Some former India cricketers, however, disagree with the sentiment. The Mumbai Indians returned to winning ways with a thrilling 12-run triumph against the Delhi Capitals in the Indian Premier League (IPL) 2025 match on Sunday.
Karn Sharma emerged as the match-winner for MI, securing three important wickets in the middle overs, while a hat-trick of run-outs derailed DC’s chase with one over to spare. While Karn Sharma’s three wickets in the middle overs were seen as the turning point in the game, former MI skipper Rohit Sharma was portrayed as the ‘mastermind’ behind the introduction of Karn Sharma with the ‘new ball’ at that moment
Mumbai Indians snapped back to form with a thrilling 12-run win defending 205 against Delhi Capitals. Karun Nair’s 40-ball 89 had threatened to take the game away from MI after Tilak Varma’s 59 had headlined their innings. But the bowlers pulled things back dramatically in the second half of the defence to pocket a memorable win and clip the Capitals’ four-game winning start to IPL 2025
Pitch Report and Toss
Pitch Report : The square boundaries are 60m and 66m respectively, it’s 72m down the ground. The highest score is 235 at this venue. There’s straw-colored grass on the pitch with lots of visible cracks. Not exactly as flat as we normally see the surfaces to be. Having said that, will it have an effect on the run-scoring? Don’t think so. More teams have won while batting first at this venue, so win the toss and bat first reckons Murali Kartik and Danny Morrison in their pitch report.
Toss : DC Capitals skipper Axar Patel won the toss and chose to bowl with Faf Du Plessis not playing the match due to injury. Mumbai Indians skipper Hardik Pandya batting first made no changes in the Playing XI.
Tilak Varma’s consecutive 2nd fifty alongside swift cameos from Ryan Rickelton, Suryakumar Yadav and Naman Dhir powers MI to 205 for 5 in 20 overs
A score of 59 was the result of a couple of big overs inside the PowerPlay for Mumbai Indians. Mitchell Starc, searching for swing, erred on the fuller lengths and was hit away for 30 runs in his first couple of overs by Ryan Rickelton and Rohit Sharma. The former was adept at covering for the swing and launched a couple of eye-catching shots – a flick and a cover drive – to get going. Sharma, meanwhile, hit Starc through the offside and even attempted a lap which was a top-edge that went for a six.
Mukesh Kumar, in comparison, was more difficult to put away from the hard lengths for MI and conceded 27 in his three overs in the PowerPlay. Additionally, leg spinner Vipraj Nigam struck gold, getting Rohit Sharma LBW in his first over which went for just two. But Suryakumar Yadav, coming in at No 3 for this game, announced his intentions with a six off the first ball he faced complementing the aggressive Rickelton.
Delhi threatened to come back into the game with the spinners coming into play. Kuldeep Yadav got the better of Rickelton with a googly, dismissing him for a 21-ball 45 soon after the PowerPlay was done. With the turn on offer, Delhi had a chance to squeeze MI more. But Tilak, like Suryakumar, got going with a boundary off his first ball. The duo managed to get at least one boundary in every over of their partnership – 60 off 33 balls.
While Suryakumar struggled with the momentum initially, getting to 29 off 24 at one stage, he managed to up his strike-rate with a six and four off Nigam to get into the forties. But just as he was getting into the groove, Kuldeep Yadav hit back for Delhi getting Suryakumar caught at long off. Delhi had it even better when Nigam got Hardik Pandya similarly in the following over even as Tilak kept going strong at one end.
Suryakumar Yadav, batting at No. 3 for the first time this season, and Ryan Rickelton too got off to starts but couldn’t convert. But just when it seemed as if MI would be restricted, they found saviours in Tilak and Dhir, who gave them a total to bowl at – those extra runs at the end seemingly making a wholesome difference to the result.
Tilak Varma was subbed out two games ago for being unable to force the pace. In his first outing after that, he made 56 off 29 in a tall run chase against RCB last week. On Sunday, he top-scored with 59 off 43 to help MI post 205. It was his eighth IPL half-century, astonishingly his first in a winning cause. The knock provided MI a base, which Naman Dhir maximised to provide the finishing kick.
A floater in the batting order, Dhir 38 off just 17; his fifth-wicket stand off 60 off 33 with Tilak helping MI recover from the wickets of Suryakumar Yadav and Hardik Pandya in the space of six deliveries in the middle stages. DC’s wristpin twins Kuldeep and Nigam combined to pick up 4 for 64 off eight overs, after MI threatened to take the game away when Rohit Sharma began by imperiously driving Mitchell Starc for two fours and then scooping him for a six.
Kuldeep Yadav finished with exceptional figures of 4-0-23-2 and started the last five overs with a tight one giving away only eight. But Tilak got to his fifty – his eighth in the IPL – off just 26 balls and looked set to shift gears. However, it was his partner Naman Dhir that proved to be the biggest thorn in Delhi’s flesh. In a 62-run stand with Tilak, Naman Dhir was the aggressor hitting a 17-ball 38 that took MI past the 200-run mark. The young batter used the angles well, picking up useful boundaries with the lap shot as well to provide MI a good finish.
Karn Sharma’s 3 wickets overpowers valiant 89 runs from Karun Nair as MI beats DC in a thriller of the match by 12 runs
Playing the match as an Impact Sub after Faf du Plessis’ injury, Karun Nair, who had not played an IPL game since 2022, was required to come in just after the first ball of the innings. Jake Fraser-McGurk had chipped the first ball from Deepak Chahar straight to cover and Nair had to dig out a big inswinging yorker from Chahar first-up.
He dealt with that and then proceeded to unleash a stunning attack on Mumbai’s No. 1 bowler Jasprit Bumrah. Nair got to a 22-ball fifty hitting eight fours and two sixes. 26 off his first 50 runs had come off just Bumrah whom he toyed with on both sides of the pitch. He started off getting three fours off Trent Boult, but the assault on Bumrah turned the PowerPlay on its head and left MI scampering.
Seven years after his most recent IPL half-century, and three years since he played in the tournament, Nair set the pace in DC’s chase after Jake Fraser-McGurk was out first ball. Coming off a ridiculous run of rich form in the domestic season, Nair’s takedown of Jasprit Bumrah in the powerplay – he picked 28 off nine deliveries, including three fours and two sixes – landed the early punches on MI.
Abhishek Porel provided an ideal foil, but he was only second-fiddle to Nair who found answers in boundaries to every question posed by Mumbai Indians. Against the spinners who came into play in the middle overs, Nair brought out a variety of sweeps to keep the momentum going in the chase. The 119-run stand for the second wicket appeared to have turned the game decisively in DC’s favour. They had notched up half of the target in half the overs with plenty of wickets in hand still.
Nair was all wrist and hand-eye coordination – whipping Bumrah off his hip with nonchalance and being equally audacious by making room and carving him inside-out over deep extra cover for two sixes. Against spin, he was quick to pick lengths and sweep, and on an occasion reverse-sweep.
He went into overdrive after bringing up a 22-ball half-century and looked set to get to three figures when a magic ball from Mitchell Santner got him. Expecting the wet ball to skid through, Nair played for a straight one, only to see the ball rip square and beat his push to hit top of off.
Five balls later, when Axar Patel was out to a leading edge to give Bumrah his first wicket of the season, MI had some inkling of hope. DC were 145 for 4 at the end of that over, the 13th.
But Karn Sharma, MI’s Impact Sub, brought an end to it when he had Porel caught in the deep going for a second consecutive six. In between, Nair continued to keep the heat on, hitting Karn Sharma for back-to-back boundaries and picking one of Mitchell Santner in the following over.
However, against the run of play, Santner got one to turn big and past Nair’s bat ending a sensational 40-ball 89. Axar Patel got going with a couple of boundaries but he got a leading edge off Bumrah to give MI their third wicket in as many overs. It turned out to be four in four as Karn Sharma got Stubbs to get a top-edge in the following over. Despite the clump of wickets, DC were still in the chase needing 47 from the last five overs with the in-form KL Rahul still in the middle.
Karn Sharma had an outing to remember finishing with 4-0-36-3 with the last of those wickets being the big one of Rahul in the 16th over. Rahul top-edged a slog-sweep offering a simple return catch to Karn Sharma, who had now turned the game back on its head, leaving a tight chase for DC’s finishers against MI’s experienced attack.
IPL’s new rule change that allows teams to ask for a new ball to counter dew after 11 overs into the second innings brought MI some much needed relief at the start of the 14th.
Three balls in, relief turned into elation when Tristan Stubbs toe-ended a slog to make it four wickets in four overs. When KL Rahul fell in eerily similar fashion two overs later, the 16th, after being done in the air and off the pitch to top edge a return catch, DC were in the middle of a full-blown collapse.
Even so, with 42 off 24 needed and two batters – Ashutosh Sharma and Vipraj Nigam who orchestrated a similar comeback against LSG – at the crease, DC still had hope that kept thinning when Trent Boult nailed five yorkers in a gun 17th over that went for just three runs.
This is when Santner, who’d already bowled arguably the ball of the match to get Nair, bounced back after conceding a six and four to Nigam before deceiving him in the air to have him stumped. The relatively drier ball offered plenty of grip and turn, and Santner now had his second.
Trent Boult backed this up with six yorkers in the 17th over giving away only three runs leaving DC needing 39 off 18. DC managed 16 off the next over with Vipraj Nigam striking Santner for a six first ball. But the spinner hit back, getting the batter stumped to keep DC in check.
The penultimate over bowled by Bumrah started off on a good note with Ashutosh Sharma squeezing two boundaries off Bumrah. But in a desperate attempt to keep strike, Ashutosh was run out going for the second run. Similar desperation for a second saw Kuldeep Yadav too run out off the next ball. MI capped this off with Santner’s glorious pick-up and throw from mid wicket off the final ball to have three run outs in as many balls and clinch MI a come-from-behind win.
Bumrah’s figures as he ran in for his final over, the 19th of the match read 3-0-34-1. With Ashutosh still in, DC had hopes. After refusing a single off the first ball, he hit him for two consecutive fours – a reverse ramped over short third followed by a thick outside edge.
With the equation down to 15 off 8, Ashutosh carved a yorker-length ball to deep point and turned for a second that proved costly. The decision to run the second wasn’t the problem; that he had to run around Bumrah as he turned around at the non-striker’s end cost him a split-second which eventually had him short of the crease. Then Kuldeep Yadav and Mohit Sharma were run out off successive deliveries as MI ended with a hat-trick of run-outs to close out the game.
MI managed to keep their nerve even after the blistering assault upfront from Karun Nair. Through the second half of the innings, they kept striking in every over bar two to drag the game back in their favour. MI got the ball changed after the 13th over and the key architects and it helped their two key architects of the win – Karn Sharma and left-arm spinner Mitchell Santner, who picked four of the five wickets when Delhi collapsed from 119/1 to 160/6. They capped off that good work by three run outs in the penultimate over.
Presentations and Road Ahead
Axar Patel the losing DC skipper said : We had the game in the bag. Some soft dismissals and bad shots in the middle order. You can’t leave it to the batters in the lower order every time. Don’t need to overthink, just one of those days. Was happy at the halfway stage.
The ball was stopping initially but it got better. And then dew helped us further. Out of our three spinners, two can bowl in powerplay and death as well. Kuldeep is bowling unbelievably well. Need to forget this game from a batting point of view.
Hardik Pandya the winning MI skipper said : Winning is always special, especially wins like this. He (Karun) was batting brilliantly, it seemed like it was going out of hand. (On Karn Sharma) Shows great character, to be brave and toss it up when the boundaries are just 60m long. We never gave up, we kept saying we want to stay in the contest. Everyone put their hand up and we were able to hold on to our chances.
(On the batting order) Wanted to get the players in form to face the most balls. Dew played a big factor later on, it got very dewy. Just by making sure the game is not over, “keep fighting” was the chatter. We knew a couple of wickets would change the game. It has happened with me before as well, wins like this change the momentum and turn everything around.
Karn Sharma Player of the Match for his 3 wickets said : [Translated from Hindi] Feels very good that my hard work has paid off. Whenever I get a chance, I want to do my best. It’s a big tournament, only 12 can play. I just focus on my process, rest is not in my hands. KL Rahul’s wicket was my favourite.
That catch was very important at that stage of the game. I pray a lot that I do well when I get a chance and that the teams win. There was no dew in the first innings, changing the ball meant that we got some more grip. That was good.
Mumbai Indians (MI) clinched a thriller they had no business winning; not certainly after a comeback knock for the ages from Karun Nair, who smashed a 40-ball 89 in a chase of 206. But Karn Sharma, their Impact Sub, cracked open the game with a three-wicket haul, to cause an implosion that ended with a hat-trick of run outs in the penultimate over as Delhi Capitals (DC) fell short by 12 runs.
It meant there are no unbeaten teams left at IPL 2025. DC would rue the two points that were stolen right from under their nose, disrupting their run of four straight wins, as their homecoming at the Arun Jaitley Stadium was met with a heartbreak no one saw coming. For MI, this was only their second win in six games, but it’s the one that will reinvigorate a campaign that threatened to turn pear-shaped less than halfway in.
The Mumbai Indians register a much-needed and their second win of the season and they do it by handing the Capitals their first defeat of the season. Oh Delhi! They had it in the bag and MI just cut out the bottom to steal it from them. Three back-to-back run-outs too to close the game and that signals the sense of panic that was running through the DC camp. Spare a thought for Karun Nair who looks absolutely dejected – he was having a fairytale comeback before it was quite cruelly cut short by Mitch Santner in the 12th over.
That’s where the downfall started for DC. It instigated a collapse and MI clutched on to all the opportunities that came their way. There was the dew factor and the ball change too. The ball was changed at the end of the 13th over and the drier ball gripped a lot more making it very difficult for the new batters coming in.
Karn Sharma bowled superbly too, scalping 3/36 and he led MI’s charge back into the contest. At 113/1 at the halfway stage, DC were absolutely cruising and MI deserve a lot of credit for pulling this one back. Earlier, contributions came through the order for MI as they posted a healthy 205/5. It wasn’t the truest surface and there was a bit of assistance for the spinners which MI exploited brilliantly in their defence.
Slow starts aren’t new to the Mumbai Indians. They almost always find a way to storm back into the tournament and this win feels like the beginning of another such instance. When they need it the most, the Mumbai Indians find a way to rally together and come up with something magical.
Today, their task wasn’t simple. They were going up against the only unbeaten side in the tournament and things looked glum when Karun Nair, a man who’s been bending fate to his will, was carting them all around. They seemed predestined to go down but they found a way, found a way as if to defy fate itself and that’s a testament to their resilience as a side.
Mumbai Indians have a three-day gap after this game before they host the imperious Sunrisers Hyderabad while Delhi Capitals host Rajasthan Royals a day earlier on April 16.