Hyderabad: After Capitals could not stop the Sun, rain did. Hyderabad did everything right in the first half of their IPL game against Delhi and pinned them to a paltry score. Then it poured. The rain gods batted on for a good hour or so to render the ground wet and leave the hosts high and dry.
The Rajiv Gandhi International Cricket Stadium here could not be brought to match-fit condition by 11.42 pm, the cut-off time to give Sunrisers 5 overs needed to constitute a game, to chase down what would’ve been a revised target of 42 after they restricted their rivals to a lowly 133 for 7, which was built on 41 runs apiece from Tristan Stubbs and Ashutosh Sharma earlier.
The washout meant both teams earned a point each. The Capitals remained fifth on the table with 13 points while Sunrisers climbed to the eighth position with 7 against their name but are out of contention for the Playoffs.
Sun would feel they were robbed of a point though, having shot the opposition point blank.
Delhi got off to a disastrous start as captain Pat Cummins led the hosts from the front. The fast bowler struck with the first balls of his first, second and third overs to get rid of Karun Nair, Faf du Plessis and Abishek Porel, all caught by wicketkeeper Ishan Kishan to cut the Capitals down to 15 for 3 in the fifth over.
From the other end, left-arm pacer Jaydev Unadkat also kept it tight.
At the end of Powerplay, the visitors were wobbling at 26 for 4. It soon became 29 for 5 as in-form K. L. Rahul edged Unadkat for Ishan Kishan to pouch his fourth catch of the match.
That forced the out-of-sorts Delhi bats to slow down the scoring and collect runs in singles and twos, barring an occasional boundary. It wasn’t until the 10th over that the first six was hit as No.7 Vipraj Nigam whipped spinner Zeeshan Ansari into the stands.
At the half-way stage, the Capitals were a sorry 47 for 5. They continued to crawl, with the team’s 50 coming in the 11th over of the innings.
Then they ran out of steam, literally. Stubbs played Zeeshan to the on-side and set off for a double while Vipraj was content with just one, leading to both batsmen being stuck at the same end. Aniket Verma relayed the throw to a waiting Zeeshan who broke the stumps at the bowling end — 62 for 6 in the 13th over.
Delhi then played the Impact card to eject Porel and pressed in Ashutosh, who repaid faith with two soaring sixes off Zeeshan in the 15th over in which 14 runs were scored.
Ashutosh belted two more boundaries off Harshal Patel as Delhi took 12 off the 17th over. Stubbs then thumped Malinga for two fours as 10 runs were added in the 18th over but Harshal did well to concede only 9 off the 19th despite being hit for a six first ball by Ashutosh, who fell on the fourth ball of the last over, caught by Abhinav Manohar off pacer Eshan Malinga.
SCOREBOARD
Delhi Capitals: Karun Nair c Kishan b Cummins 0, Faf du Plessis c Kishan b Cummins 3, Abhishek Porel c Kishan b Cummins 8, K. L. Rahul c Kishan b Unadkat 10, Axar Patel c Cummins b Patel 6, Tristan Stubbs not out 41, Vipraj Nigam run out 18, Ashutosh Sharma c Manohar b Malinga 41, Mitchell Starc not out 1. Extras (lb-2, w-3) 5. Total (For 7 wickets in 20 overs) 133.
Fall of Wickets: 1-0, 2-6, 3-15, 4-26, 5-29, 6-62, 7-128.
Bowling: Pat Cummins 4-0-19-3, Jaydev Unadkat 4-0-13-1, Harshal Patel 4-0-36-1, Eshan Malinga 4-0-28-1, Zeeshan Ansari 3-0-30-0, Abhishek Sharma 1-0-5-0.
(Match abandoned due to rain)