Mitchell Marsh scored a watchful and calculative half-century on a challenging pitch and in tough conditions to power Delhi Capitals to an important 17-run win over Punjab Kings, which helped them move into the top 4 teams in the ongoing Indian Premier League (IPL) 2022 points table.
The senior Australian all-rounder scored 63 from 48 balls with the help of 4 fours and 3 sixes to take his team’s total to a formidable 159/7, and in their reply, Punjab Kings suffered an embarrassing batting collapse once again and finished at 142/9, which was largely powered by contributions from a few specific batsmen.
Apart from the Australian cricketer Mitchell Marsh who has been a different beast altogether in the shortest format of the game, India all-rounder Shardul Thakur produced two double-wicket overs to return with a splendid 4-0-36-4 while the likes of Axar Patel and Kuldeep Yadav broke the back of the chase for Punjab Kings, taking 2/14 each from their 4 and 4 overs respectively.
It was Punjab Kings who won the toss and they had the early advantage when their out-of-form captain Mayank Agarwal threw the ball to English all-rounder Liam Livingstone (4-0-27-3) to send down the first over. Seeing the right-arm spinner coming into attack, Australia and Delhi Capitals opener David Warner decided to take on the Englishman but was caught for a first-ball duck at point.
Mitchell Marsh and Sarfaraz Khan helped Delhi recover from an early blow with their strong association of 51 runs for the second wicket in the middle. The right-handed Sarfaraz Khan (32) looked ominous but paid the price of being a little too aggressive, but it was Mitchell Marsh who showed the way of batting on this pitch which was full of caution and aggression.
Lalit Yadav scored an important 24 while Axar Patel made 17 as Delhi Capitals finished at a total which was beyond the reach of Punjab Kings, who were simply poor with the bat.
Jonny Bairstow perished after scoring 28 from 15 balls while the veteran India batsman Shikhar Dhawan never found any rhythm at all, scoring 19 from 16 balls in his short innings. Punjab Kings’ Bhanuka Rajpaksa looked terribly out of form with a 5-ball 4, while their misery continued further with Mayank Agarwal having yet another horrendous outing with the bat.
The Punjab Kings captain and India opener Mayank Agarwal scored a two-ball duck in an all-important clash for his side, as the defeat to Delhi Capitals on Monday night has pushed his team on the brink of extinction from the tournament.
Punjab were served well by their wicketkeeper-batsman Jitesh Sharma and spinner Rahul Chahar, who scored 44 and 25 not out respectively in a desperate bid to keep their side in the contest, but Delhi Capitals were far too good for them.