Sunrisers Hyderabad defeated Delhi Capitals at the Arun Jaitley Stadium to break a three-match losing streak in a high-stakes contest when neither team relented and continued to throw punches at the other.
At one point, when David Warner was dismissed for a second-ball duck, Mitchell Marsh and Phil Salt stitched together 112 runs in only 11 overs, putting the Capitals on pace to quickly chase down a 198-run mark.
Then, as one wicket followed another, Sunrisers were back on track due to the cunning of Mayank Markande, who had taken 2 for 20, before Delhi could even realise it. Sunrisers are now in last place in the standings with three victories in eight games compared to Capitals’ two in eight.
Capitals’ comeback
The Capitals dominated the following four over as they only gave up 21. Despite the short boundaries, Marsh altered the game’s speed during this period by letting batters drive the pace on a surface where the ball was holding up. Harry Brook toe-ended a draw to the edge of the ring two balls after he had Aiden Markram plucking out deep midwicket, with Axar Patel, the catcher both times.
Markande leads spinners into it
Markande coupled the dots by taking advantage of the sluggish pitch before striking out Salt with a last-second return catch. Given that Salt’s first half-century had set the tone for the chase, it was a significant wicket. Manish Pandey sprinted down the track seven balls later, but Abhishek cut his length and beat him in the air and off the pitch.
Marsh was now responsible for bringing the Capitals home, but that wasn’t to be since Hosein brilliantly responded after the first attack by firing him. He valiantly put it up for Marsh to go after getting walloped out of the ground on the previous delivery. However, this one gripped and spun, and Marsh cut it to Markram. That was the match for SRH right there. Axar maintained a little pressure in the dying stages, but the middle-order delay following the Salt-Marsh stand turned out to be the deciding factor.
Sunrisers Hyderabad, 197 for 6 (Abhishek 67, Klaasen 53*, Marsh 4-27), beat Delhi Capitals 188 for 6 (Marsh 63, Salt 59, Markande 2-20) by 9 runs