Delhi Capitals (DC) defeated Rajasthan Royals (RR) by eight wickets in their IPL 2022 fixture at the Dr DY Patil Sports Academy in Navi Mumbai.
David Warner and Mitchell Marsh put up a 144-run partnership that negated any advantage that Rajasthan Royals may have got from getting a wicket off the second ball of the Delhi Capitals innings.
Earlier, Ravichandran Ashwin turned out to be the unlikely star of the Rajasthan Royals’ batting effort as he scored a 38-ball 50 after being sent in at No.3. He put up 53-run stand for the fourth wicket with Devdutt Padikkal, who scored 48 off 30 balls.
However, Delhi Capitals managed to pull things back in the last five overs, giving away just 44 runs and taking three wickets to restrict RR to 160/6.
Rajasthan Royals captain Sanju Samson expressed disappointment at his team’s 8-wicket loss against Delhi Capitals in Navi Mumbai last night.
“Very disappointing night. We were few runs short and few wickets short in the middle. While we were batting, the wicket was two paced. We were 15-20 runs short. While bowling second, we dropped a few catches,” Samson told Star Sports in a post-match interview.
However, RR Batter Shimron Hetmyer’s absence inspired Royals to promote Ravichandran Ashwin to No. 3 in the batting order.
While Ashwin scored a maiden T20 half-century, RR lacked depth in the batting order especially in the business end of the innings.
Hetmyer, who has returned home due to the birth of his first child, was always expected to return for the remainder of the IPL.
While Samson is hopeful of Hetmyer’s participation in the tournament, there is no clarity as to whether the left-handed batter will play their next match against Lucknow Super Giants on Sunday or not.
“Hoping to get him back soon,” Samson said about Hetmyer before concluding the interview.
Hetmyer has been a huge contributor to the Royals’ surge up the points table. As the team’s finisher, he has scored 291 runs at an average of 72 (he has remained unbeaten in seven out of 11 innings).
A more telling statistic of his influence is his death-overs (17-20) strike rate. At 214.28, he is among the top-five most destructive finishers this season (min 30 balls).
Hetmyer left Mumbai on Sunday morning on the back of another high-impact cameo 31 not out off 16 balls against Punjab Kings that helped seal a chase of 190.
Royals have two games left in the league stage, Lucknow Super Giants on May 15 and Chennai Super Kings on May 20.