Delhi Capitals beat Punjab Kings by nine wickets in the Indian Premier League here on Wednesday. Punjab were all out for 115 after being put in to bat.
Jitesh Sharma top scored for Punjab with 32 off 23 balls. Delhi spinners enjoyed their time in the middle with Kuldeep Yadav, Lalit Yaav and Axar Patel taking two wickets each.
Delhi raced to victory in 10.3 overs after Prithvi Shaw (41 off 20 balls) and David Warner (60 not out off 30 balls) shared 83 runs for the opening wicket.
The game was in doubt with Delhi reporting sixth COVID case in their camp but the BCCI decided to go ahead with after players returning negative tests following two rounds of testing in the Wednesday morning.
However, Aakash Chopra is worried for the Delhi Capitals (DC) franchise as one of their expensive purchases, batting all-rounder Rovman Powell, has done nothing of note in IPL 2022 so far.
The former Indian opener expects the team to back the big-hitting West Indian for next matches, but urged them to have a backup plan in place.
The 28-year-old was purchased by Delhi at the IPL auction in February for ₹2.8 crore. He has featured in all of DC’s five matches this season, managing to score only 31 runs at a paltry average of 6.20 and a strike rate of 100. While his best of 20 came against the Gujarat Titans (GT), he has been dismissed twice without scoring.
Chopra spoke about Powell on his YouTube channel:
“Rovman Powell has been playing, but he has done nothing till now. And, if he has done nothing, then he is due to fire. Delhi will be hoping that he scores runs soon. But, if that doesn’t happen then you need a backup.”
Picked as an all-rounder, Powell has bowled only one over in IPL 2022 so far in a match against the Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR), conceding 17 runs.