The Delhi Capitals’ struggles continued in the IPL 2023 season as they suffered their fifth consecutive defeat, this time against the Royal Challengers Bangalore at the M Chinnaswamy Stadium in Bangalore.
After being put into bat, RCB made a strong start with their openers Virat Kohli and Faf du Plessis. Kohli, in particular, was in fine form, scoring his third straight fifty at home. However, he fell to a juicy full toss on the very next ball after reaching his half-century, and RCB lost some momentum.
Mahipal Lomror and Glenn Maxwell tried to rebuild the innings in the middle, but RCB faced a collapse in the middle overs. Kuldeep Yadav took consecutive wickets of Maxwell and Dinesh Karthik, and Harshal Patel also fell cheaply.
RCB went from 132/3 to 132/6 as three wickets fell in three consecutive deliveries. However, Shahbaz Ahmed and Anuj Rawat provided a late surge, putting together 40 runs in the last five overs to take RCB to a competitive total of 174 runs.
In response, Delhi Capitals had a poor start to their chase as RCB’s bowlers Mohammed Siraj, Wayne Parnell, and Vijaykumar Vyshak were effective from the outset. They picked up early wickets and compounded the damage in the middle overs. David Warner, who had been in good form throughout the season, tried to hold the innings together but could only manage 19 runs before getting dismissed.
The only bright spot in Delhi’s chase was Manish Pandey’s aggressive innings, where he scored a fifty off just 37 balls. However, it was not enough to help Delhi Capitals cross the finishing line as wickets kept falling at regular intervals. RCB’s bowlers kept the pressure on and eventually claimed a 23-run victory, restricting Delhi Capitals to 151/9 in their allotted 20 overs.
With this win, Royal Challengers Bangalore moved up to seventh in the IPL 2023 points table with two points, while Delhi Capitals continued to struggle with their fifth consecutive defeat. The match was worth watching as RCB showed a stupendous performance with both bat and ball, while Delhi Capitals’ batting struggles continued to haunt them.
Wins at the Chinnaswamy might give RCB a head start before their 5 straight-away games since 6 of their first 8 games are at home. The Capitals are at a different extreme as well. They haven’t had much luck: Prithvi Shaw hasn’t been as good as he used to be, Rishabh Pant’s absence has made the middle order unstable, and David Warner has had to act as an anchor. The bowling assault hasn’t quite been able to deliver with runs being scarce. But for attempting to begin a winning run, they couldn’t have asked for a better surface than that at the Chinnaswamy.
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