Kings XI Punjab registered their third win in succession and kept their campaign alive in the Indian Premier League 2020 on Tuesday as they beat Delhi Capitals by 5 wickets in Dubai to gain 2 places on the points table.
KXIP got off to a horror start while chasing a modest 165 as captain KL Rahul suffered a rare failure, getting out for 15 just before Chris Gayle brought them back in the powerplay by smashing 25 in the 5th over bowled by Tushar Deshpande.
But the Jamaican legend couldn’t continue with his power-hitting and getting out for the 5th time in the IPL to Ravichandran Ashwin in the final over of the powerplay. Just 3 balls after Gayle’s departure, Mayank Agarwal got run out for 5 due to a poor call for a single by Nicholas Pooran.
The West Indian though made amends for his mistake by smashing 53 off 28 balls to help KXIP overhaul the target in the 19th over. (KXIP vs DC, IPL 2020 Match 38: Highlights)
He got good support from under-fire Glenn Maxwell, with the duo sharing a 69-run partnership for the fourth-wicket which laid the platform for KXIP to clinch the North-Indian derby and avenge their Super Over defeat against DC at the same venue on the second day of IPL 2020 last month.
Maxwell was under tremendous pressure to perform with the bat after repeated failures but finally came good in this crunch game with a crucial 32 off 24 balls.
KXIP thus, surpassed Sunrisers Hyderabad and Rajasthan Royals to grab the 5th spot on the points table with their 3rd successive win and 4th in 10 matches so far. DC held on to the spot despite the loss, thanks to their 14 points from 10 games.
KXIP might have won the game thanks to Pooran and Maxwell’s knocks but it was Shikhar Dhawan who stole the show in the first innings despite DC’s defeat.
Dhawan smashed 106 not out off 61 balls with 13 fours and three sixes to help DC post 164 for 5 after they won the toss and opted to bat first at the Dubai International Stadium.
Dhawan created history with his knocks as he became the first player to score back-to-back hundreds in IPL and the 5th batsman to score at least 2 centuries in the league.
Dhawan also completed 5000 IPL runs in the process to become the 5th batsman after Virat Kohli (5759), Suresh Raina (5368), Rohit Sharma (5158), and David Warner (5037) to enter the 5k club in the tournament. He also toppled Warner from the 4th spot on the list of the highest run-scorers in the IPL and completed 400 runs for the season, which is only behind KL Rahul’s current tally of 540 runs in 10 matches.
But despite Dhawan’s knock, failure of the rest of the DC batting lineup resulted in their defeat in this match with the next-best batsman scoring 14. In fact, Shreyas Iyer (14), Rishabh Pant (14) and Shimron Hetmyer (10) were the only other batsmen who managed to score in double digits for Delhi as Kings XI Punjab’s bowlers stood up for the team.
Mohammed Shami once again led the attack with 2 wickets for 28 runs from his 4 overs and got good support from Jimmy Neesham (1 for 17), Glenn Maxwell (1 for 31) and Murugan Ashwin (1 for 33) from the other ends.
DC will next face Kolkata Knight Riders in a day game on October 24 in Abu Dhabi while KXIP will lock horns with Sunrisers Hyderabad in Dubai in the 2nd match on Saturday.