Delhi Capitals’ captain Axar Patel, right, and Ashutosh Sharma celebrates (AP Photo)
New Delhi: Vaibhav Sooryavanshi was batting on 43 runs from 17 balls. A voice nearby said jokingly, “We’ve become so used to his explosive scoring that this doesn’t even feel an anomaly.” Come to think of it, it is true.So when he came to the Arun Jaitley Stadium on Sunday night, to face Delhi Capitals, and took his sixes tally in IPL 2026 to 43, including three on the night, it didn’t look out of place. He has now registered the most sixes by an Indian batter in a single IPL season, surpassing Abhishek Sharma’s 42 in 2024.Yet, his collective tally of 440 runs (before the match), put him outside the top-10 in the Orange Cap race. 46 runs later — having faced 21 balls — laced with three sixes and five boundaries, he had catapulted sixth in the list. His stay in the middle was stopped short by Madhav Tiwari.The 22-year-old Delhi Capitals seamer had made his mark in the win against the Punjab Kings on May 11. With his 2/40 and a valuable cameo of unbeaten 18 runs, the Madhya Pradesh youngster had found a place for second game running.He once again proved decisive with figures of 2/27 even though Lungi Ngidi (2/24) was more economical and Mitchell Starc (4/40) more lethal. Starc struck thrice in an over — was on a hat-trick chance — with wickets of Riyan Parag, Donovan Ferreira and Ravi Singh.The big impact, however, arguably, was the wicket of Vaibhav Sooryavanshi to not just apply the brakes on a motoring machine, but also getting rid of a potential massive total further down the line.Despite the wicket, that appeared to be a real possibility. RR were 160/2 after 14 overs with Dhruv Jurel and Riyan Parag stitching a 72-run partnership. Skipper Parag was doing the bulk of the scoring with a 26-ball 51 to show for himself.At the fag end, Tiwari added the wicket of Shubham Dubey as DC bowlers delivered in the manner they hadn’t at home so far in the season. They brought in plenty of variations to the fore: Nigid with a mix of slower ‘uns and deliveries that climbed up to the batters.Eventually, RR were stopped on 193/8 — well short of a 220-plus total at one stage — with the last six overs resulting in just 33 runs at the cost of six wickets.“Coming into this IPL season, I just thought that I’m gonna take in four or five variations with me and I’m gonna back them throughout the season. So, I have been working on them, and hopefully, the results are helping in my favour,” said Tiwari during the mid-innings interaction.“I guess there was a bit of help from the wicket. It was gripping, and so I thought that I could use more of them. I was just looking to put myself (in) a high‑pressure situation in the nets themselves. So bowling to (David) Miller and bowling to Ashutosh (Sharma) and KL (Rahul) helped me. “I was just trying to figure out how I’m gonna bowl against these batsmen, which is gonna help me in this tournament,” he continued.In reply, Delhi Capitals looked to be motoring to the 194-run target, just the way Rajasthan Royals had started strongly. Abhishek Porel and KL Rahul put together 105 runs on the scoreboard in under 10 overs and the target looked well in sights.But, much like RR’s effort, DC also lost the plot with one wicket after another. Abhishek Porel (51), KL Rahul (56) and Axar Patel (34*) went to double digits but the chase got nervous. Sahil Parakh (9), Tristan Stubbs (4) and David Miller (9) all came and perished without much of a role.Similar to DC’s trio of seamers who pulled the game back, it was Jofra Archer who kept them in the hunt. His 2/35 kept RR alive in the contest with wickets and flow of runs being curtailed.Riyan Parag’s decision to hand the ball to Donovan Ferreira proved to be a big turning point. In the 18th over, Ferreira came on for his first of the night and was smacked for 16 runs to ease any pressure.12 runs in the penultimate over and 10 off the two balls in the last saw DC walk past the finish line in the end and break their losing streak at home.In the grand scheme of things, RR are still alive in the playoff race but on a night they were cruising with the bat and had DC needing 35 runs off 3 overs, it is an opportunity squandered.
