APRIL 1, 2019
Brief Scorecard: Kings XI Punjab 166 for 9 (Miller 43, Sarfaraz 39, Morris 3-30, Lamichhane 2-27, Rabada 2-32) beat Delhi Capitals 152 (Pant 39, Ingram 38, Curran 4-11, Shami 2-27, R Ashwin 2-31) by 14 runs
CHANDIGARH – Twenty-three runs to get. Twenty-one balls to get them in. Seven wickets in hand. Two set batsmen at the crease. You can’t lose T20 games from there, right?
Well, Delhi Capitals did.
In an insane collapse that even the old Daredevils would have been embarrassed of, this revamped Delhi team lost their last seven wickets for eight runs, as Mohammed Shami and Sam Curran produced death overs that even they might never have thought could be so productive. Curran was a monster, claiming 4 for 11 from his 2.2 overs – his last eight deliveries yielding all of his wickets, and only four runs. Shami, though, was the man who set the collapse in motion, uprooting Rishabh Pant’s middle stump in the 17th over, then making a mess of Hanuma Vihari’s stumps in the 19th.
In between, captain R Ashwin produced a run out, this time one even his harshest critics could not claim was unethical. When Chris Morris pushed the first ball he faced to Ashwin at mid-off, Kings XI’s captain swooped, picked up, and threw down the stumps, finding Morris meters short, and tore into the embrace of his team-mates. The wicket of Pant was important, but it was the dismissal of Morris that seemed to breathe sudden life into the Kings XI team as well as their home crowd, just as it seemed to strike Delhi dead.
Next over, Curran had the other set batsman – Colin Ingram – caught at the long-off boundary, and Kings XI had swung the game dramatically in their favour, in the space of seven deliveries.
