Pant, Axar star as Capitals cling on to win a topsy-turvy thriller

Delhi Capitals 224 for 4 (Pant 88*, Axar 66, Warrier 3-15) beat Gujarat Titans 220 for 8 (Sai Sudharsan 65, Miller 55, Salam 3-44) by four runs

Sudharsan, Miller make it a contest

Shubman Gill fell early to Anrich Nortje in the chase, for the fourth time in seven innings, but that did not slow Titans down. Wriddhiman Saha struck 30 in his first 12 balls by expertly clearing the infield while Sudharsan made full use of an early reprieve off Rasikh Salam’s bowling to race off the blocks. They did not let Nortje or Khaleel Ahmed settle and collected 67 in the powerplay.

The spinners then bogged down Saha, and Kuldeep dismissed him for 35 in 29 balls. But Sudharsan dominated through the middle overs, hitting both seamers and spinners through the offside with cuts both in front and behind square. He also came down the ground to race to 69 in 35 balls before falling to Salam in an attempt to clear long off.

With Azmatullah Omarzai, Shahrukh Khan and Rahul Tewatia all falling for single-digit scores around Sudharsan’s dismissal, Titans appeared to lose steam needing 73 in 24 balls. However, Miller mauled Nortje for three sixes and a four in a 24-run 17th over to give Titans hope and complete his own half-century off 21 balls.

Mukesh then dismissed Miller in the 18th over and at the time it seemed Capitals had done enough. But Salam leaked 18 runs in the 19th over to make it a shootout between Rashid and Mukesh.

Mukesh conceded two fours off the first two balls and then another six off the penultimate delivery but held his nerve in the final delivery to get a ball to land so full that Rashid could not find that elusive boundary or six.

Titans’ spinners neutralised

After Warrier’s three-wicket burst had given Titans the early advantage, the expectation was that Rashid, Noor Ahmad and R Sai Kishore would strangle Capitals through the middle overs. But both Axar and Pant kept all three at bay with different strategies.

Against Rashid, they only attacked the loose balls, half-trackers or wide deliveries, and eked out 37 runs off him in four wicketless overs. Against the lesser experienced Noor, they attacked him to leave him on an economy of 12 in three.

Gill then went with the experienced Mohit instead of the in-form Warrier for the 20th, and Pant owned that match-up. When Mohit went full and wide, Pant slapped him over the off side. When Mohit went short or slow, Pant hung back and deposited him over the leg side. And when Mohit missed his yorker, Pant sent him over midwicket. Pant ballooned to 88 as he helped Capitals score 31 in the final over, and his assault left Mohit with the worst bowling figures in IPL history – 0 for 73 – and Titans needing 225 to win.

Axar’s many contributions

With David Warner sitting out, and Capitals not wanting Pant to bat too early, they pushed Axar as the left-hander to bat in the top three. It brought about a change in his fortunes with the bat, as he struck Rashid for slog sweeps over the leg side initially before hitting both him and Noor through the covers off short balls.

Part-timer Shahrukh also faced the same fate before Axar reached his fifty with a boundary off Rashid in the 15th over. He was the majority contributor in the 68-ball 113-run stand with Pant, and it was only in his pursuit of a third six in a row against Noor in the 17th over that he fell on the boundary line, but by then his 66 was already his highest IPL score ever.

Then, Axar was a livewire in the field, back-pedalling at mid-off in the second over to hold onto a catch to dismiss Gill. He would be in the action again when Saha tried to cut Kuldeep over cover, only for him to jump high and stick his arms up to pluck a catch. Then, after dropping Sudharsan early in the powerplay, Axar got a chance at redemption by being at long-off late in the chase to take a tricky one.

With the ball, Axar conceded only two fours and a six in his three overs. Neither Saha nor Miller, both in sublime touch otherwise, failed to put him away in his spell, and it was only Sudharsan’s three boundary-shots that made him concede 28 in three overs. Axar also dismissed Azmatullah Omarzai in the 11th over, but it was not enough to claim the Player-of-the-Match award, with that one going to his captain instead.