IPL 2019, KXIP vs DC: The best captaincy move of the day
Both the teams came into this game high on confidence after winning their respective matches on Saturday. KXIP beat Mumbai Indians to make it two wins out of three this season. Delhi Capitals managed to beat in-form Kolkata Knight Riders to make it two out of three too in IPL 2019.
KXIP suffered an early blow as their star opener Chris Gayle was ruled out of the match due to a niggle. The team management opted to pick all-rounder Sam Curran to open the innings with KL Rahul. The move paid off well as Curran played a decent cameo scoring 20 off just 10 balls.
KXIP was in a spot of bother when they lost Mayank Aggarwal early but then middle order took charge. Youngster Sarfaraz Khan built a solid partnership with David Miller to put KXIP in a good position. The home team's chances of posting a score more than 180 took a hit as lower order didn't contribute anything. Mandeep Singh tried his best to hold the innings together to take the score past 160.
It was a below-par score on this pitch considering the form of Delhi batsmen. Ravichandran Ashwin came up with a masterstroke as he opened the bowling himself to tackle Prithvi Shaw who struggles a bit against spin. The move paid off well as Ashwin picked the wicket of Shaw with the first ball of the innings.
But Ashwin came up with an even better trick in the match. The decision to bowl Sam Curran in the death overs paid heavy dividends. The match was evenly balanced when Curran came to bowl in the 18th over of the innings. The English all-rounder finished off the match by picking four wickets in five balls across two overs. This spell included a hat-trick too as Curran finished with figures of 11/4 in 2.2 overs.
KXIP won the match by 14 runs to make it three wins out of four to be level on the IPL Points Table with first-placed CSK. On the other hand, DC would be kicking themselves for missing out on this opportunity.