Right at the start, a giggle was caught on the mic. It sounded very Rishabh Pant-y. Rishabh Pant and Gill were just staring at each other and everybody else was stuck waiting as the Capitals skipper tried to remember what the plan was after winning the toss. “I think we’re going to bowl,” he said.
Rishabh Pant took two catches, one requiring a little more effort than normal, from how he needed to dive low and quickly to his left to take it and then call on DRS to confirm suspicions that David Miller had indeed nicked it as Gujarat slumped to their lowest ever totals in IPL over the seasons. Rishabh Pant played a key role in captaining Delhi Capitals to a resounding win and a leap in points table.
Pitch and Toss.
The square boundaries are 61m and 72m long, while the straight boundary is at 75m. We’re playing on pitch 4 for the first time this season, it’s a 100% black soil pitch. It doesn’t have a lot of grass, but it should still be a very good batting pitch with no real turn for the spinners. At 41 degrees, it’s a very warm day and dew could be a factor. That could play a role in what the toss winning captain decides, reckon Daren Ganga and Simon Katich, in their pitch report.
Delhi Capitals won the Toss and chose to field and replaced injured David Warner with Sumit Kumar.
Gujarat Titans batting first bought in Wriddhiman Saha and David Miller and Sandeep Warrier for Matthew Wade, Umesh Yadav and Vijay Shankar.
DC keep Gujarat in a chokehold
Gujarat Titans just couldn’t break free from the chokehold that Delhi Capitals had them in since asking them to bat. The tone was set by the pacers – Ishant Sharma had Shubman Gill chipping to cover and Mukesh Kumar cleaned up Wriddhiman Saha. So regular were they with the breakthroughs that the highest partnership Gujarat managed through the innings was just 18. Sai Sudarshan’s run out, a double-wicket over for Tristan Stubbs all contributed to DC’s relentless excellence with the ball on a pitch that was on the stickier side.
A slow, low, and turning pitch had the home team spiraling all through their innings. Shubman Gill tried to get ahead of it by going hard at everything. He hit two cuh-risp fours in five balls and in going for another he got caught at cover. Eventually it became clear why he was so desperate for early boundaries.
The ball began holding in the pitch. Wriddhiman Saha went after it but was too early into the pull and dragged it onto his stumps. It began spinning. Tristan Stubbs, who had bowled only 177 balls in his 79-match T20 career, helped himself to two wickets in an over with his off breaks.
Rishabh Pant shines behind the stumps
Adding to the bowlers’ accuracy was Rishabh Pant’s excellent wicket-keeping. It kickstarted with a brilliant diving catch off Ishant to get David Miller and the quick stumping of Abhinav Manohar, followed by another to get Shahrukh Khan. Pant’s four dismissals was the joint-most for a Delhi franchise wicket-keeper in IPL.
Right at the start, a giggle was caught on the mic. It sounded very Rishabh Pant-y. Rishabh Pant and Gill were just staring at each other and everybody else was stuck waiting as the Capitals skipper tried to remember what the plan was after winning the toss. “I think we’re going to bowl,” he said.
Rishabh Pant took two catches, one requiring a little more effort than normal, from how he needed to dive low and quickly to his left to take it and then call on DRS to confirm suspicions that David Miller had indeed nicked it.
There were a couple of stumpings as well, one that almost didn’t happen. Rishabh Pant had seen that Shahrukh’s back foot was nowhere near where it needed to be. He was beyond excited. That might have played a part in how he grabbed for the ball, hard-handed, and therefore couldn’t collect it cleanly. But it didn’t matter because the ball just bounced off his gloves and straight onto the wicket, prompting child-like glee at how a mistake he’d made actually turned out okay.
This is why the world needs Rishabh Pant. A lot of his fans – and India fans – must be thrilled that he’s back playing cricket again because he is a game-changer. But really, he’s so much more than that. He reminds people to smile. To enjoy themselves. To have fun. Just by smiling and having fun himself.
After the eighth over, when Kuldeep Yadav was upset with a wayward throw, acting like he had suffered a mortal wound, Rishabh Pant ran down to the bowler, put one hand around his shoulders and used the other one to stroke his chest. There, there. Don’t worry. Be happy.
Rishabh Pant had a good game as captain too, bringing back Khaleel Ahmed for a third over inside the powerplay to see if he could sneak a fifth Titans wicket. That wasn’t possible but a maiden was. For some reason he bowled Stubbs ahead of Axar Patel which turned a score of 47 for 4 to 48 for 6. Rishabh Pant spent the rest of the innings chirping away behind the stumps. It was like he was never even away.
No batter reverse it for Gujarat as they slump to their lowest 89 all out in IPL.
No one stayed in long enough to create an impact with all that could go wrong for them, did. Only Rashid Khan chanced his arm from the lower-order to score 31 which ended up as the highest score of the innings. The unabated fall of wickets meant that Gujarat were bowled out for the lowest total in their home ground. This was the first time a team didn’t manage to score 100 since the introduction of the Impact Sub
Four of the top six with single-digit scores. Rahul Tewatia batting in the powerplay. Sacrificing the option of R Sai Kishore as an Impact Player against the right-hander-heavy Capitals line-up to send in Shahrukh Khan. He was meant to firefight. He was the in-case-of-emergency-break-glass option. He returned with a duck. Out stumped even though the wicketkeeper didn’t collect the ball cleanly. It was that kind of day.
At the start of the fourth over, Gujarat Titans were projected to reach 169. By the start of the sixth over, they were trending much lower, to 120. In the end, they were bowled out for double-digits, 89. It was their lowest-ever IPL total, having been brought into the tournament in 2022.
Delhi Capitals chased down the total in 8.5 overs to have a massive boost in the Powerplay.
Mostly smooth, and very quick. Having already suffered heavy defeats in the tournament, DC’s NRR needed a big boost. This presented an opportunity to redeem some of that, and so they came all guns blazing. Jake Fraser-McGurk first set the tone with a 10-ball 20 but with the high-risk approach came the chances.
Spencer Johnson got Fraser-McGurk before Sandeep Warrier struck twice to get Prithvi Shaw and Abhishek Porel despite being picked off for boundaries. Eventually, they finished it off under 9 overs to pick up a massive win. The win gave their NRR a much-needed boost as it went from -0.975 to -0.074, which took them up to sixth on the points table.
Four of the six bowlers Delhi Capitals used returned economy rates of 4.5 or less, setting up the batters to go out there and do their thing. The chase was done in 53 balls, with six wickets to spare, and that mattered. Capitals are now in sixth place, above Titans on the points table, because their net run-rate rose from -0.975 to -0.074.
Presentations and Road Ahead.
Shubman Gill the loosing skipper said : Our batting was very average, and it is important to move on and come back strong. The wicket was alright, if you see some of the dismissals, it had nothing to do with the pitch.
Poor shot selection I would say. When the opposition are chasing 89, unless someone takes a double hat-trick, the opposition will always be in the game. This is just the halfway mark of the season for us, we have won 3 and hopefully we win another 5-6 from the next 7 like in the last couple of years.
Rishabh Pant the winning skipper and Player of the match for a fantastic game as captain overall said : Lots of things to be pleased about. We talked about the champion thought process and our team showed today that we can play like that and really happy to see that. [on the bowling] Definitely one of the best, it’s early on in the tournament, can’t say much as we can improve individually.
The only thought process before coming on to the field was coming in a better way, that’s the only thought when I was going through my rehab. The only conversation we had before the chase was – let’s get it as early as possible, we lost a few run-rate points earlier and we covered it up.
We just love being in Ahmedabad, we love the stadium, the vibe here and looking forward to play more matches here. We just want to enjoy our win, one at a time and move forward learning from it.
What a thrashing this is for GT at home. The batting totally flopped and that was game done almost at the halfway stage. That they managed to take 4 wickets in the chase should be the only solace for them. Fraser-McGurk at the top threatened to finish it off in a jiffy but Johnson got him and Warrier chipped in with a couple of wickets.
But DC always had one eye on the NRR and they kept going for it. In the end they finished it off in just 8.5 overs which should boost their NRR massively as well as depleting GT’s. An early finish here and a totally unexpected result for GT are a very good side at home. After all the run-glut we saw over the last few days, a low-scoring game and an early finish. The IPL throws up a surprise when you least expect it.
Delhi Capitals play on their original ‘home’ ground for the first time this season as they take on Sunrisers Hyderabad on April 20 while Gujarat Titans travel to Chandigarh to take on Punjab Kings on April 21.