Agarwal gets off to a flier
A wicket an over times four
Rishabh Pant played match-ups by bowling Lalit to Shikhar Dhawan and got a wicket immediately although not conceivably in a planned manner. This was a long hop down the leg side, Dhawan tried to help it along to fine leg, but just didn’t get there in time, and Pant took a special catch off the face of the bat. In the next over, Agarwal, trying to stay beside the line, ended up playing on Mustafizur Rahman.
This wasn’t going to slow PBKS down in the last over of the powerplay. Liam Livingstone tried to take Axar down, but missed wildly and got stumped. In the next over, Jonny Bairstow nailed a flat pull off Khaleel, but found long leg with precision. Four wickets gone for 21 runs.
A new bunch of four
Kuldeep then went through Kagiso Rabada and Nathan Ellis in the 14th over, Rabada with the wrong’un and Ellis with the conventional wristspin. When Shahrukh edged a Khaleel offcutter throught to Pant in the next over, the last hope of a fighting total disappeared.
The last two wickets added 23 but not at a pace that would bother DC.
Shaw, Warner romp home
Not surprisingly it began with Shaw, first off an inside edge to a big inswinger from Vaibhav Arora, then more deliberately. Once Warner started going after Rabada, it was almost a hit-off between the two. If Warner hit two fours off Arora, Shaw responded with a six last ball. Warner raised three fours off Rabada in the fourth. It took them to fifty in 3.3 overs, the fastest this season and the fifth-highest 3.3-over score in the history of the IPL.
Capitals ended up with 81 in the powerplay, the highest for any Delhi-based team in the IPL. This was the highest percentage of a 100-plus target shaved off inside the powerplay in all IPL matches.
The powerplay failed to dim their intent. While Shaw fell for 41 off 20, trying to hit Rahul Chahar for a six in the seventh over, Warner went on to add to his record of fifty-plus scores in the IPL.
Sidharth Monga is an assistant editor at ESPNcricinfo
Source: ESPN Crickinfo