Left-handed bowler Kuldeep Yadav and Mustafizur Rahman brought out a four-wicket win for the Delhi Capitals against Kolkata Knight Riders in the Indian Premier League on Thursday.
Kuldeep destroyed the top order with 4-14, and Mustafizur picked up three wickets in the penultimate over to keep Kolkata at 146-9.
The Capitals withstood a middle-order meltdown against fast bowler Umesh Yadav, as Capitals middle-order batsman Rovman Powell's unbeaten 33 off 16 balls propelled his team to 150-6 with an over to spare, handing Kolkata its sixth straight loss.
“I know I am in good form, so I keep trusting myself, keep trusting the work I did before IPL and keep trusting the work I did in the nets before these games,” said Powell. “I think it’s a feel-good factor. A lot of bases have been covered. It’s just for us now to put the pieces together.”
Kolkata's Struggle
The Knight Riders' batting troubles continued as opening batsman Aaron Finch was clean bowled by Capitals bowler Chetan Sakariya in only the second over and Knight Riders all-rounder Venkatesh Iyer holed out to Sakariya at short fine leg inside the batting powerplay.
Kuldeep struck twice in his opening over, taking the wickets of all-rounder Baba Indrajith and Sunil Narine on consecutive deliveries, before adding two more in his last over.
Knight Riders captain Shreyas Iyer, who scored 42, was excellently caught by Delhi's wicketkeeper and his counterpart Rishabh Pant, and then Kuldeep outfoxed hard-hitting all-rounder Andre Russell to stump him without scoring.
Knight Riders batsman Nitish Rana batted well for 57 balls before becoming one of Mustafizur's three casualties in the last over as the Knight Riders finished with a poor overall.
“We started off really slow and lost a couple of wickets,” said Shreyas. “The total was pretty low on this wicket and obviously the way we played in the first half, there are no excuses for that. We need to go back and assess where we went wrong.”
Umesh gave Kolkata a great start by catching batsman Prithvi Shaw off his own bowling off the first ball, before dismissing opening batsman David Warner and Pant in his return effort as Delhi fell to 84-5 in the 12th over.
All-rounder Axar Patel had 24 from 17 balls before being run out in the 15th over while going for an unnecessary second run, but Powell ensured the Capitals didn't slip up with three sixes and a boundary in his undefeated performance.
As Kuldeep and Axar controlled the roost in the middle overs, Pant made some weird bowling changes, giving three overs to Lalit Yadav, which cost them 32 runs, while Kuldeep and Chetan Sakariya, who gave up 14 and 12 runs respectively in three overs, was denied the fourth.
Teams' Ranking
The Capitals are now ranked sixth in the Tata IPL points table for this season, while the Knight Riders are ranked eighth.
The Capitals will be going against the Lucknow Super Giants on May 1, 2022 at Wankhede Stadium, Mumbai. Lucknow has defeat the Capitals in a previous match with 155-4 in 19.4 overs.
The Knight Riders on the other will be facing the Rajasthan Royals on May 2, 2022 at Wankhede Stadium, Mumbai. The Royals has previously beat the Knight Riders with a 217-5 in 20 overs.
