Shikhar Dhawan showed great form dispatching the shorter balls to the square boundaries as he scored an unbeaten 97 and led Delhi Capitals to a win over Kolkata Knight Riders. He was helped in the run chase in no small measure by Rishab Pant. Both the left-handers played some delightful strokes against the Knight Rider’s bowling attack.

Shikhar Dhawan acknowledges the applause from the Delhi Capitals dugout on reaching his fifty Source

Joe Denly was clean bowled, the first ball of the inning, by a peach of a delivery from Ishant Sharma. Shubhman Gill and his vice-captain, Robin Uthappa played some scintillating shots putting together 36 runs for the second wicket. Uthappa feels when he tried to hook a Kagiso Rabada short ball only to glove it to pant behind the stumps. Gill continued to play his shots reaching his fifty off 34 balls. Keemo Paul got him on 65(39 balls) when he glanced a ball straight to short fine-leg. Karthik then clipped a Rabada ball to deep square leg only to be caught by Dhawan a few yards inside the boundary.

Andre Russel was severe on Rabada hitting him for three sixes and a four over two overs. Rabada, however, had the pleasure of catching Russel for 45 (21 balls) at third-man when he tried to cut Chris Morris. Piyush Chawla scored two boundaries on his way to 14*(6 balls) and remained not out with Kuldeep Yadav. Kolkata Knight Riders finished their 20 over with a score of 178 runs for seven wickets. At the beginning of the inning, it looked like KKR would end up in the vicinity of 190-200 but Ishant Sharma (21-1) and Axar Patel (30-0) bowled well in the middle overs to restrain the KKR batsmen.

Shubman Gill scored a fluent 65 for KKR Source

Both Prithvi Shaw and Shikhar Dhawan came out all guns blazing for the Delhi capitals when it was their turn to bat. Shaw hit two sixes off Lockie Fergusson while hit Prasidh Krishna for two sixes and a four. Shaw was however caught brilliantly when Dinesh Kartik dived way to his left to collect an edge off Krishna. Dhawan continued in the same vein hitting Andre Russell for three boundaries in the next over. Shreyas Iyer walked after he got a fine tickle to Kartik off Russell. Dhawan reached his fifty off 32 deliveries when he played Brathwaite through the covers for four.

Shikhar Dhawan had a reprieve when he was on 16 runs. The ball from Prsidh Krishna took a very faint inside edge, hit his thigh pad and went on to the keeper. It was a tough decision for the third umpire to make and he chose to go with the field umpires decision of 'not out'. Dhawan and Rishab Pant batted sensibly, punishing the rotating the strike and punishing the loose ball. They did not allow the required run rate to grow big on them. Pant fell to an indiscrete shot when he tried a one-handed slog off Nitish Rana and holed out to long-on.

Rishab Pant threw his wicket away playing a one-handed shot when on 46 runs Source

By this time the required run rate had dropped to 5.66 runs per over. Colin Ingram finished the match with two sixes in the 19th over bowled by Piyush Chawla and remained not out with Shikhar Dhawan. Delhi Capitals had won the match by 7 wickets. This is the fourth win for Delhi Capitals in seven matches placing them in the fourth position in the league table.