Mitchell Marsh, Shardul Thakur overwhelm Punjab to lead DC to crucial win

Stroke making was not so easy at the DY Patil pitch on Monday. Match No. 64 was an important match for both Punjab Kings and Delhi Capitals as both had to win to stay in contention for the Play Offs. A loss for either does not eliminate them, though.

DC ended on the right side of the result to strengthen their chances while PBKS are still technically not out of the race as they have to win their last match against Sunrisers Hyderabad on Sunday and hope for all the other results and the net run rate to fall in their favour. DC moved to fourth on the table with 14 points, pushing RCB to fifth while PBKS stayed on seventh with 12 points.

Barring a bright start given by Jonny Bairstow, scoring 28 in 15 balls with four fours and a six while his opening partner Shikhar Dhawan was cautious, the two sharing 38 in under four overs, the PBKS innings fell apart like nine pins. Not one batsman among the top five played a responsible knock and only Jitesh Sharma made a significant contribution with the bat, making an IPL personal best 44 (34b, 3x4, 2x6) but he was not threatening at any one point to singlehandedly take PBKS home.

While the DC spinners enjoyed the surface and got good purchases, the speedsters Anrich Nortje and man of the match Shardul Thakur, who took his best IPL bowling figures of 4 for 36, gave the early breakthroughs in the Power Play to put their team on the victory path. Axar Patel (2 for 14) and Kuldeep Yadav (2 for 14) only completed what the speedsters set up for them.

Sent in to bat after Mayank Agarwal won the toss, DC made a challenging 159 for seven, thanks largely to their Australian professional Mitchell Marsh’s second successive fifty (63, 48b, 4x4, 3x6) with the support cast played by comeback man Sarfaraz Khan (32, 16b, 5x4, 1x6) and Lalit Yadav (24, 21b, 1x4, 1x6). The Western Australia all-rounder went in to bat earlier than expected after compatriot David Warner was dismissed in the first ball of the match to slow bowler Liam Livingstone. Marsh had to curb his attacking instincts and anchored the innings from the first over until his dismissal in the 19th.

In contrast to his match-winning 89 against Rajasthan Royals at the same venue last Wednesday in which he smashed seven sixes and five fours, Marsh had, in all, only seven boundaries including three sixes while notching up his second IPL fifty. Two of his sixes came off successive deliveries in the second over of the match off Kagiso Rabada while the third had to wait a while, over long-on off left-arm medium-pacer Arshdeep Singh in the 11^th over.

Marsh played the way that Warner has been doing of late for DC, i.e. a well-set top-order batsman staying till the end even if wickets fell at the other end. That was exactly what Marsh did, building two sizeable partnerships of 51 in 21 balls for the second wicket with Sarfaraz and 47 in 38 balls for the third with Lalit Yadav. Yet another stand of 37 with Axar Patel in 29 balls ensured that DC crossed 150.

DC ought to have got to a bigger score had their top-order batsmen not thrown away their wickets. Sarfaraz went on the aggressive mode, smashing a six and two fours off left-arm spinner Harpreet Singh Brar in the innings’ third over while also playing a blind scoop over the wicket-keeper’s head for four after missing it on an earlier occasion against Rabada. But he fell to a slower one from Arshdeep, skying to mid-on.

DC skipper Rishabh Pant joined Marsh at the fall of Yadav in the 11^th over, slammed a typical one-handed six off Livingstone and fell the next ball charging down the pitch and missing the line to be stumped for just seven. Marsh played the horizontal shot on either side of the wicket but the boundaries weren’t coming that easy. He played a loft similar to the flick that fetched him a six earlier on at mid-wicket, but this time against Rabada, he could not go past Rishi Dhawan at the boundary. However, he had done his job brilliantly on a tricky surface that was keeping slow.