The venue was Delhi. The format was T20. However firstly of Monday’s fixture on the Arun Jaitley Stadium within the IPL, Bhuvneshwar Kumar and Josh Hazlewood have been so irresistible with the brand new ball that the proceedings resembled a Take a look at match unfolding on a inexperienced deck in Dunedin.
If Bhuvneshwar teased Delhi Capitals’ batters with swing from a very good size, Hazlewood tormented the opposition with the quick supply. The lethal mixture broke the again of the host contained in the PowerPlay, and made victory for Royal Challengers Bengaluru a matter of ritual.
Each pacers scalped three wickets every of their opening spells as Capitals have been incredulously lowered to eight for six in 3.5 overs, with the scores of the highest six studying 0, 1, 1, 0, 5, 0. The document of the bottom whole in IPL historical past — 49 by RCB towards Kolkata Knight Riders in 2017 — was at risk for some time, however Abishek Porel and David Miller put collectively 35 for the seventh wicket to avert that ignominy.
Ultimately, Hazlewood completed with figures of three.3-0-12-4 as DC folded up for 75. The defending champion took simply 6.3 overs to clinch a nine-wicket win, leaving Axar Patel and Co. with a whole lot of soul-searching to do within the coming days.
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Heightening the sense of disbelief concerning the night was the truth that 529 runs had been scored for the lack of simply six wickets throughout two innings on an adjoining pitch simply 48 hours in the past.
Bhuvneshwar sparked the collapse. With debutant Sahil Parakh on strike within the opening over, the 36-year-old conjured up an inswinging yorker to uproot center stump. He would additionally account for Tristan Stubbs and Axar within the third over.
From the opposite finish, Hazlewood was simply as spellbinding. Off his first two balls, he dismissed Okay.L. Rahul and Sameer Rizvi. Rahul was hurried by a bouncer, miscuing a pull to wicketkeeper Jitesh Sharma. Rizvi was enticed right into a unfastened drive to a ball vast of off-stump.
The others crumbled predictably like a pack of playing cards, with Hazlewood fittingly ending the Capitals’ distress by cleansing up Porel with a yorker.
Printed on Apr 27, 2026