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Delhi Capitals 121 for 5 (Pant 53*, Sodhi 3-26, Gopal 2-21) beat Rajasthan Royals 115 for 9 (Parag 50, Mishra 3-17, Ishant 3-38, Boult 2-17) by 5 wickets
New Delhi: Ishant Sharma and Amit Mishra starred with the ball and Rishabh Pant scored a fifty as Delhi Capitals (DC) beat Rajasthan Royals (RR) by five wickets in the 53rd match of the Indian Premier League (IPL) 2019 at the Feroz Shah Kotla in New Delhi on Saturday.
With the defeat, the hopes of the Ajinkya Rahane-led side to make it to the playoffs also came to an end. The win, meanwhile, helped DC to make it to the top two in the points table.
While DC lost their openers – Prithvi Shaw and Shikhar Dhawan – early in the chase of 116, Rishabh Pant, who scored an unbeaten 53, helped the home team cross the finish line with 23 balls to spare.
The decision of opting to bat did not pay dividends for RR, for whom this was a must-win game, as they failed to put up a formidable total on the board as Ishant and Mishra, who scalped three wickets each, restricted DC to 115/9.
Although Riyan Parag scored his maiden IPL fifty, he did not find any support from the other RR batsmen as the Jaipur-based franchise, who needed a win to keep their hopes to make it to the playoffs alive, could not go past 120-run mark.
Ishant set the ball rolling for DC as the pacer dismissed Ajinkya Rahane, who was leading RR after Steve Smith’s return to Australia, in the second over. The right-arm pacer then sent Liam Livingstone packing in his second over.
While Sanju Samson was out run out for five, Ishant struck once again to remove Mahipal Lomror as RR lost as many as four wickets in the powerplay.
While Shreyas Gopal and Riyan Parag tried to stitch a partnership, Mishra joined the wicket-taking party and derailed RR innings further as he dismissed – Gopal, Stuart Binny and Krishnappa Gowtham and reduced the visitors to 65/7.
