The scores of the Delhi Capitals’ top-six — 0, 1, 1, 0, 5, 0 — on Monday looked straight out of an OTP.
But it was just the Royal Challengers Bengaluru leaving the Capitals reeling at six down for eight runs in the fourth over in New Delhi.
From such a hopeless position, there was no way back for the hosts as RCB bashed the Capitals by nine wickets in a game that lasted only 23 overs at the Arun Jaitley Stadium on Monday.
Josh Hazlewood (4/12) and Bhuvneshwar Kumar (3/5) were the wreckers-in-chief for RCB as they bundled the Capitals out for 75 halfway into the 17th over. Then, RCB’s Impact Player Jacob Bethell (replacing leg-spinner Suyash Sharma), his opening partner Virat Kohli and Devdutt Padikkal simply pointed out to the Capitals how good the pitch was for strokeplay, taking only 6.3 overs to reach the target.
If not for the 33-ball 30 from Bengal’s Abishek Porel, the Capitals’ Impact Player (in place of opener Sahil Parakh), and his 35-run seventh-wicket partnership with David Miller (19 off 18 balls), the Delhi franchise could have fallen well short of the lowest IPL total — RCB’s 49 all out against Kolkata Knight Riders in 2017.
Without doubt, Bhuvneshwar was again spot-on with the movement he extracted off the new ball, while Man of the Match Hazlewood’s immaculate accuracy proved why he too is one of the best all-format bowlers at present. "I was just following Bhuvi's lead," Hazlewood said later.
"There was a bit out there in the first six overs... Enough there to work with, and it (ball) was skidding on quickly from short of a length. And yeah, I feel like we're hitting our straps again at the right time."
The in-form KL Rahul, Hazlewood’s first wicket, was undone by the hard length before senior batter Nitish Rana seemed clueless to one that nipped back in and reared up as well.
But the shots from Sameer Rizvi, who fell off the first ball off Hazlewood, and Tristan Stubbs — poking at an away-going but wide'ish delivery from Bhuvneshwar — were poor, reflecting their below-par technique when the ball does a bit.
A little bit of application was expected of Miller too. Even when set, he mishit a short delivery from Rasikh Salam, giving catching practice to keeper Jitesh Sharma.
Alongside Hazlewood and Bhuvneshwar, Suyash, too, finished with Test match-like figures (1/7), bowling as many as 20 dot balls with the wicket of Kuldeep Yadav.
The Capitals, having slipped to seventh in the standings, could only manage eight fours and a six in their innings, which further sums up their ordeal with the bat.