Indian cricket, holding its breath over Rohit’s striking ability in T20 cricket for a while, would heave a sigh relief when seeing Rohit toying with the Capitals bowling all through the evening.
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Rohit’s flawless knock was enough for his two power-hitters Cameron Green and Tim David to power MI home and drive another dagger through Delhi Capitals’ already teetering campaign. That knock also outdid another Axar Patel special of 25-ball 54 which made up for the Capitals’ out-of-breath batting order.
Of late, Axar has been batting in a zone that could put the best Indian batters in his shadow. For Capitals though, their batting strength seems to start and end with whatever Axar does in the little time he spends in the middle. In reply, Rohit took it upon himself to match Axar’s effort as he unleashed his fury on a young Mukesh Kumar in the opening over slapping him over mid-wicket. Soon, he unfurled the entire repertoire of strokes—unassuming sweeps, reverse sweeps, murderous pulls and milking the singles.
As It Happened
Young wicketkeeper Abhishek Porel’s one-handed catch stunner to dismiss Rohit off Mukesh may have ignited some hope for Capitals. But given the rather ordinary cricket that the team had played just a single moment of brilliance was never going to be enough.
Either side of Axar’s belligerent counterattack at No. 7, Capitals’ frail batting order was exposed again by MI bowling. Skipper David Warner’s scrappy 47-ball 51 notwithstanding, Capitals batters always looked out of breath. Led by the guile of the jarringly-burly Piyush Chawla’s 3/22, MI literally teased the home team’s batting to dismiss them two balls shy of the full 20 overs.
Reeling on the back of three humiliating losses to start the season, Capitals came out trying to show intent and take on the bowlers. They couldn’t have asked for a better streetfighter than Warner himself. When Prithvi Shaw punched Jason Behendorff down the ground for a boundary in the first over, Warner punched the bat aggressively. They did get off to a start, scoring 33 in 3.4 overs till fell sweeping Hrithik Shokeen to square-leg.
Soon, Warner’s streetfight turned into a dogfight. His heaves barely found the middle of his bat as Manish Pandey, debutant Yash Dhull, Rovman Powell and Lalit Yadav barely looking up to the mark to deal with IPL-class bowling. That leaves you wondering the rationale behind Capitals waiting for a red-hot Axar to come in till the 13th over when the team has already been crippled at 98/5. The pitch seemed to stop a bit on the batters, offering a hint of grip and turn.
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All of that changed once Axar took strike. Every shot screamed of his bat. Once he eased Shokeen over long-off for back-to-back sixes, MI could see the ominous signs. His drives off the front foot were languid and pleasing to the eyes while his backfoot powerplay was equally intimidating. For most of the innings, Capitals looked like they were struggling to even get to 150. 20 balls into Axar’s stay when he brought up his half-century in 22 balls, they threatened to breach the 190-run mark. It did help that one of his five sixes was thanks to Suryakumar Yadav making a mockery of a regulation chance at the long-on boundary.
Just as Axar’s crisply-timed flick off Behendorff was neatly snaffled at deep backward square-leg by Arshad Khan at 165/6 on the first ball of the 19th over, Capitals’ fight fizzled out like opening a bottle of soda. Warner’s ardous knock came to an end with a top-edge being gobbled at short third-man and then the lack of game awareness in Kuldeep Yadav and Abhishek Porel meant they could only muster another five runs.
