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Rahul, Stubbs power Capitals to win over RCB

football10 April 2025 18:06| © MWP
By:Ross Roche
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An incredible partnership between KL Rahul and Tristan Stubbs powered the Delhi Capitals to a comfortable six-wicket win over Royal Challengers Bengaluru in their IPL encounter at the M Chinnaswamy Stadium in Bengaluru on Thursday night.

Rahul crunched six sixes and seven fours in an unbeaten 93 off 53 balls, while Stubbs struck 38* off 23 (4x4; 1x6) as their brilliant unbeaten 111-run fifth-wicket partnership off 55 balls slammed their team out of a hole and over the line with 13 balls to spare.

After the Capitals won the toss and chose to bowl, the Royal Challengers got off to a flying start, but were soon brought back down to earth, with Phil Salt, 37 off 17 (4x4; 3x6), Tim David, 37* off 20 (2x4; 4x6), Rajat Patidar (25), and Virat Kohli, 22 off 14 (1x4; 2x6) the key contributors in getting them to 163-7 in their 20 overs.

Their innings got off to a blistering start thanks to Salt and Kohli as they took 53 off the first three overs, with the first only going for seven, before 16 came off Axar Patel in the second and 30 off Mitchell Starc in the third.

But that was as good as it got for the hosts as in the fourth over a terrible mix-up between Salt and Kohli ended with the Englishman sent back and run out, leaving them on 61-1, which became 64-2 by the end of the six-over powerplay after Devdutt Padikkal (1) fell to Mukesh Kumar.

It was the spinners that then firmly put the brakes on the Royal Challengers innings as Kuldeep Yadav (2-17) and Vipraj Nigam (2-18) dominated the middle overs. 

Only Patidar and Krunal Pandya (18), managed to slow the flow of wickets.

An impressive late-innings cameo from David, dominating an unbeaten 38-run stand off 17 balls with Bhuvneshwar Kumar (1*) helped get them to a below par but defendable total.

RAHUL TO THE RESCUE

A disastrous start to the Capitals innings made it seem like that score would be more than enough as Yash Dayal had Faf du Plessis (2) caught by Patidar and Kumar removed Jake Fraser-McGurk (7) and Abishek Porel (7), both edging to keeper Jitesh Sharma as they slipped to 30-3 in the fifth over.

Captain Axar Patel (15) popped an easy catch to David off the bowling of Suyash Sharma, leaving the Capitals in deep trouble on 58-4 in the ninth over.

However. it was then the Rahul show as he took charge of a superb chase, thrashing his way past 50 and towards what would have been a well deserved century, while Stubbs initially played the perfect support role before freeing his arms towards the end of the game as they cruised over the line in style.

DELHI CAPITALS: Jake Fraser-McGurk, Faf du Plessis, KL Rahul (wk), Tristan Stubbs, Ashutosh Sharma, Axar Patel (capt), Vipraj Nigam, Mitchell Starc, Kuldeep Yadav, Mohit Sharma, Mukesh Kumar

ROYAL CHALLENGERS BENGALURU: Virat Kohli, Phil Salt, Devdutt Padikkal, Rajat Patidar (capt), Liam Livingstone, Jitesh Sharma (wk), Tim David, Krunal Pandya, Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Josh Hazlewood, Yash Dayal

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