Delhi Capitals (DC) avenged their shocking first-leg defeat with a five-wicket victory over Kings XI Punjab (KXIP), brightening their prospects of reaching to the play-offs of the Indian Premier League (IPL) 2019 at the Feroz Shah Kotla stadium on Saturday.
Chasing 164, Delhi opener Shikhar Dhawan laid the foundation with a fluent 56 of 41 balls, while skipper Shreyas Iyer scored an unbeaten 58 off 49 balls to complete the job with two balls to spare. Earlier, Gayle smashed five gargantuan sixes into the night sky before DC put the brakes and restricted KXIP to 163 for seven.
In the first leg at the PCA stadium in Mohali, DC lost seven wickets for eight runs to gift KXIP victory after sitting pretty at 144 for three in the 17th over while chasing 168.
Here’s how Twitter reacted:
What a game of cricket this has been. The @DelhiCapitals clinch a thriller here at the Kotla. Beat #KXIP by 5 wickets.#DCvKXIP pic.twitter.com/S7pqFuTtpU
— IndianPremierLeague (@IPL) April 20, 2019
V. I. C. T. O. R. Y. 🤩#QilaKotla mein kar diya fateh 👊#DCvKXIP #ThisIsNewDelhi #DelhiCapitals pic.twitter.com/ynr7PvaJ5q
— Delhi Capitals (@DelhiCapitals) April 20, 2019
Fantastic innings from @SDhawan25 and great composure from Shreyas gives a well deserved win.
The catch by Colin Ingram ( eventually by Axar) to dismiss Chris Gayle made a huge difference , Great presence of mind #DCvKXIP https://t.co/xzaTK1Qz8w— Mohammad Kaif (@MohammadKaif) April 20, 2019
Needed a Ricky Ponting to shake Shikhar out of his comfort zone. Far too many coaches pander to the wishes of star players. Dhawan is a better T20 batsman now thanks to Ricky.#DCvKXIP
— Sanjay Manjrekar (@sanjaymanjrekar) April 20, 2019
Most FOURS in IPL:
500* Dhawan
492 Gambhir
473 Raina
471 Kohli
445 Warner#DCvKXIP— Bharath Seervi (@SeerviBharath) April 20, 2019
https://twitter.com/LMKMovieManiac/status/1119668406700011520
Friends in Delhi get excited every year and then give up. This year things could be different.. At least a qualification perhaps, first after 2012 #DelhiCapitals
— Jatin Sapru (@jatinsapru) April 20, 2019
The team is in a winning position, the required rate is 7.2 and Rishabh Pant throws his wicket yet again by playing a reckless shot. #DCvKXIP #KXIPvDC pic.twitter.com/JbcarjZdTQ
— Sir Jadeja fan (@SirJadeja) April 20, 2019
https://twitter.com/Trendulkar/status/1119661509716652032
Scores today:
161
162
163
166Iyer's four ruined the sequence! #RRvMI #DCvKXIP
— Bharath Seervi (@SeerviBharath) April 20, 2019
Not sure if Rishabh Pant is overrated but Shreyas Iyer is massively underrated. #DCvKXIP #IPL2019
— Hemang (@sirschweini) April 20, 2019
Poor record for Kings XI Punjab in away games! #IPL2019 #IPLT20 #KXIP pic.twitter.com/kVSXgmfLEu
— CricketTimes.com (@CricketTimesHQ) April 21, 2019