Starc’s firepower and century opening stand help Delhi Capitals stay alive

Abishek Porel of Delhi Capitals celebrates the fifty with KL Rahul of Delhi Capitals during Match 62. (Photo by Surjeet Yadav / CREIMAS for IPL)

Taking on a rearranged Rajasthan attack, Porel’s supple wrists brought a rare experience – an undisturbed 10 overs yielding 105 runs – alongside a half-century that set the pace. It allowed Delhi to eventually paper over Rahul’s relatively sluggish innings (56 off 42 balls) and a late middle-overs scare involving Tristan Stubbs and David Miller. A floating Axar Patel absorbed pressure for once and together with the hard-hitting Ashutosh Sharma (18* off five), the sixth-wicket pair lifted DC to a rare win at home with four balls to spare, keeping the suspense over their playoff qualification alive.

Three toes, a kryptonite

Even a 10-ball Vaibhav Sooryavanshi sequence involves action that lasts an entire highlights package. It began on the very first ball that brought out a glorious swivel that went soaring over the legside boundary.

Bowling brains are frozen by that inverted bat swoosh and bent back that conjures a special shot every second delivery. Attacks are limited to the rarefied margins of “magic balls”, according to his mentor Zubin Bharucha.

But even the finest bats leave frail traces somewhere in their DNA. The world could comb for weeks and months in search of a glowing kryptonite. The DC bowlers searched for that weakness on a hot evening before the trial-and-error method uncorked Sooryavanshi after 26 deliveries.

The knock was brilliant in powering Rajasthan off the blocks in their first hit in eight days. It was also momentous in capturing the first steady signs of an indiscretion tied to the end of his fiery hot bat. Even as an out-of-form Yashasvi Jaiswal could not build on the three measured boundaries in the first over, Sooryavanshi rocked back and crunched Lungi Ngidi’s quicker bumper over fine leg for a six first ball, a third such instance in 12 innings.

It was Ngidi’s second delivery that played a trick. The classic slower ball that scrambled Sooryvanshi’s timing, a toe-edge saving the pad/stumps. When the speeds were upped from Mitchell Starc at the other end, Sooryavanshi butchered the short and wide deliveries with elan. Debutant spinner Tripurana Vijay was the next to test his impulse, dragging the length back. The toe edge evaded Sameer Rizvi’s fingers as he ran backwards from mid-on. Flatter next ball, Sooryavanshi belted it into the deep mid-wicket stands – the 43rd six breaking the Indian record for most sixes in an IPL season.

When the pace wore off after the Powerplay, Sooryavanshi’s impetuosity grew with the hang time produced by his supreme backlift and back-foot game, also the signs of a great batter in Bharucha’s eyes. “Not committing to the front foot is great, but it disrupts his perception of depth against slower deliveries. That is why he struggles against 125 kph deliveries. Even when he plays a shot, he’s always leaning back. It demands special deliveries with a change in pace,” Bharucha had told The Indian Express.

The method finally worked for Delhi when seamer Madhav Tiwari’s wafted 129 kph slot ball disrupted Sooryavanshi, forcing him early into a slog; a third toed skier this time cupped safely by David Miller at long-on.

Reprieves aplenty

Sloppy hands have gone together with shoddy batting of the Capitals this year. So when Dhruv Jurel and Riyan Parag were presented with an early reprieve each, the duo fell back on their natural line of attack in the ‘V’. Sixes bled between cow corner and wide long-off as the RR Nos. 3 and 4 rode to crucial half-centuries. A fore-handed tennis swat that nearly proved his downfall in the 10th over reappeared two overs later to announce Parag’s return to scoring form – a vertical swipe for six off Mukesh Kumar.

The straight hits were blunted by a returning Starc, who nipped Parag and the rest of the middle-order cavalry with three wickets in four balls. Starc, Ngidi and Tiwari combined for an excellent clean-up act, conceding only 33 for six scalps in the last six overs, leaving Rajasthan short on a truer Delhi pitch.

Brief Scores: Rajasthan Royals 193/8 in 20 overs (Jurel 53, Parag 51; Starc 4/40) lost to Delhi Capitals 197/5 in 19.2 (Rahul 56, Porel 51; Archer 2/35) by five wickets