It was a very good day on the field for the Delhi Capitals after the problems they are struggling with off it. Five members of the Delhi franchise had tested positive before this match but that did not affect their game at all as Rishabh Pant’s side won their game against Punjab Kings by 9 wickets. Pant won the toss and elected to field first. After having a good start in the first three overs, Punjab started to lose wickets at regular intervals.

Apart from cameos from the skipper Mayank Agarwal (24 off 15) and Jitesh Sharma (32 off 23), no batter could stand in front of the Delhi spin trio of Kuldeep, Axar and Lalit. PBKS finished their innings at 115 all out. Delhi openers started smashing the ball from the first over as the intent was clear from them to chase down the target as early as possible. Delhi eventually registered the biggest ever win in their IPL history with a resounding 9 wicket win with 57 balls to spare. That takes DC’s net run rate to +0.94 after 6 matches. Rishabh Pant was happy with this big win in the difficult circumstances.

“There was a lot of confusion because we learnt of the positive test in the morning (Tim Seifert). We were a bit nervous and there were talks of the game getting cancelled. But we spoke as a team that we must purely focus on the match,” Pant said at the post-match presentation. “Delhi Capitals has to go through every game. Results are not in our control, but we have to give everything in our games.”

Let’s look at the talking points of the match between the Delhi Capitals and the Punjab Kings –

Delhi Capitals’ spin attack too hot for PBKS

It was an incredible bowling performance from Delhi on the ground which is producing all the high scoring matches. Delhi has an in-form Kuldeep Yadav in their ranks who picked up two wickets in this game. Alongside him, Lalit Yadav and Axar Patel picked up two apiece as well and were very economical in their 4 overs. AS for the pace is concerned, Khaleel and Mustafizur picked up three in total.

Delhi’s highest powerplay score

 Coming out to chase a low total of 115, Delhi openers were in the mood. Prithwi Shaw and David Warner scored 81 in the powerplay overs which is the highest in this year’s IPL. Shaw made a prolific 41 off just 20 balls which included 7 fours and a six. Warner remained unbeaten at 60 off 30 balls. Both of them had a strike rate of 200 and above which helped DC finish off the game in the 11^th over. It was also Delhi’s highest powerplay score in all IPL seasons. The previous best for them was against RCB, where they made 71/0 in the first season in 2008.

Punjab – the most favourite opponent of David Warner

With his third half-century in this year’s IPL, Warner is giving Delhi fans pure entertainment this season. After he scored an unbeaten 60 in this match, it takes his tally to 1005 runs against the PBKS which is the second-highest in terms of most runs scored against a single opposition. Rohit Sharma tops the list with his 1018 runs against KKR.