Delhi Capitals pulled off a thrilling win via the Super Over against Rajasthan Royals, courtesy a Mitchell Starc masterpiece, in their Indian Premier League match in New Delhi on Wednesday, April 16, 2025.
As both teams scored 188 runs in their 20 overs, the Super Over came into play.
Batting first, RR scored 11 in the Super Over bowled by Starc. In reply, DC chased down the target with two balls to spare.
Earlier, RR Skipper Sanju Samson won the toss and asked DC to bat first. They finished on a formidable 188-5 but none of their batters could score a fifty.
Abhishek Porel (49 off 37 balls) was their highest scorer followed by K L Rahul (38 off 32), Tristan Stubbs (34 off 18) and Skipper Axar Patel (34 off 14).
Stats
For RR, Jofra Archer picked 2-32 in four overs while Sri Lankan spin duo of Maheesh Theekshana and Wanindu Hasaranga accounted for a wicket apiece. Karun Nair, who blasted a 40-ball 89 in DC's previous match against the Mumbai Indians, was out for a duck after being runout facing just three balls.
For RR, Yashasvi Jaiswal (51 off 37) and Nitish Rana (51 off 28) did the bulk of the scoring. Samson, who retired hurt on 31 after suffering from a side strain, and Dhruv Jurel (26 off 17 balls) also contributed to their total.
Samson and Jaiswal stitched together a partnership of 61 in 5.3 overs before the former went off after experiencing pain on the left side of his torso. The incident broke RR's momentum, and in the next over bowled by Axar Patel, Riyan Parag and Jaiswal could manage only two runs.
Rana came to the crease in the 9th over and took his time to settle, scoring his first 20 runs of 16 balls. He cut loose in the 15th over bowled by Axar, plundering 16 runs with the help of two fours and a six. In the first ball of the over, he got a reprieve, dropped by Tristan Stubbs at long-on as the ball flicked the South African's fingertips and went for a maximum.
In the 16th over bowled by Kuldeep Yadav, he hit back-to-back sixes and a four before completing his fifty with a scoop off Mohit Sharma.
It was Rana's 20th IPL fifty as well as his fastest too, coming off just 26 deliveries.
RR were cruising along when Rana and Jurel were at the crease. Rana had hit two sixes and six boundaries before Starc trapped him plumb in front of the stumps with a vicious toe-crushing yorker. When he departed, RR needed 28 runs off 10 balls.
Jurel, in the company of Shimron Hetmyer, kept RR in the hunt by scoring 14 off the penultimate over bowled by Mohit Sharma, bringing the equation down to nine runs off the final six balls.
However, Starc returned to torment them, giving away just eight runs in the final over which also saw Jurel running himself out while trying to take a second run.
Stats
The RR management's decision to send Parag, who scored a scratchy 8 off 11 balls, and Hetmyer (15 off 9) to open in the Super Over ahead of Jaiswal and Rana raised eyebrows, and in the end, the move backfired as they could muster only 11 runs off 5 balls while losing two wickets.
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