IPL 2023Delhi Capitals slump to fifth loss in a row after batting debacle against Royal Challengers Bangalore

By Sabyasachi ChowdhuryDelhi Capitals’ campaign in the Indian Premier League (IPL) 2023 is going from bad to worse. David Warner’s men have lost five matches in a row and kept languishing at the bottom of the points table. On Saturday, April 15, DC lost to the Royal Challengers Bangalore (RCB) by 23 runs at the M Chinnaswamy Stadium in Bangalore.

After being asked to chase down 175, the Capitals lost three early wickets with only two runs on the board. Anuj Rawat’s direct hit led to Prithvi Shaw’s dismissal for a duck, after which Mitchell Marsh and Yash Dhull also departed.

Warner was starting to look good after hitting four fours, but Vijaykumar Vyshak dismissed him to cut short his stay in the middle. After the powerplay, the Capitals found themselves at 32 for the loss of four wickets in six overs with the required rate of over 10.

The Capitals lost half their side when Harshal Patel got the wicket of Abhishek Porel. Axar Patel threatened for a bit after scoring 21 before Vyshak accounted for his wicket. Manish Pandey took the attack to Wanindu Hasaranga for 4, 6 and 4 to get to his half-century off 37 balls.

But on the very next delivery, Hasaranga trapped him plumb in front with a googly. From there on, the required run-rate kept going up and out of DC’s reach. Vyshak was impressive on his IPL debut after he finished with figures of 4-0-20-3. The Capitals finished with 151 for nine in 20 overs.

Earlier, the RCB put up a decent score of 174 for the loss of six wickets. Virat Kohli and Faf du Plessis put on 42 runs for the opening wicket off 4.4 overs. Kohli carried his decent form after scoring 50 runs before Lalit Yadav accounted for his wicket.

Du Plessis, Mahipal Lomror and Glenn Maxwell scored in their 20s and got them at brisk pace. From 117 for two, RCB slumped to 132 for six in a space of 11 balls. From there on, Shahbaz Ahmed and Anuj Rawat stitched together an unbeaten 42-run stand to take RCB past the 170-run mark.

Shahbaz was the more aggressive partner after he scored an unbeaten 12-ball 20. Rawat had a tough time as he managed only 15 runs off 22 balls. Barring Mustafizur Rahman, who leaked 41 runs in three overs, all of the DC bowlers had decent days in the office.

But after some decent death bowling, DC’s batting just couldn’t absorb the pressure. RCB, in the meantime, moved to the seventh spot after being in eighth in the table before the match.