Prithvi Shaw turned out to be the hero in Delhi Capitals run chase against Kolkata Knight Riders in Ahmedabad. The Mumbai batsman was in prolific form as she smashed 6 fours in a single over off Shivam Mavi. Shaw after a fabulous knock - 82 off 41 perished after he decided to up the scoring rate. However, it was the match that he took away from KKR quite early in the contest. The openers Shaw and Dhawan put together a century partnership to seal the game quite early in the contest. The first over produced 25 runs which more or less dented the hopes of the KKR fans. He just blew KKR away with some really attractive stroke play, punishing both pace and spin alike. KKR's tactics were questionable. Hardly a short ball to Shaw in the powerplay, or even Dhawan for that matter.
By virtue of this loss Delhi climb to the second spot with 10 points and Kolkata slumped to the fifth defeat of the season. The KKR batsman were slow off the blocks with the bat, and lost wickets in the middle period. Axar Patel and Lalit Yadav scalped two wickets each as Delhi Capitals restricted Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) to a score of 154/6 in the allotted 20 overs. For KKR, Shubman Gill got going with the bat as he played a knock of 43 runs. Andre Russell and Pat Cummins also played useful knocks of 45 and 11 respectively but KKR had to settle with a below-par score. Asked to bat first, KKR did not get off to an ideal start as the side lost its opener Nitish Rana (15) in the fourth over. Patel had the left-handed batsman stumped and this brought Rahul Tripathi to the middle. Tripathi and Gill took KKR's score to 45/1 after the end of the sixth over. Tripathi and Gill stitched together a 44-run partnership for the second wicket, but as soon as KKR started to dominate, Delhi Capitals stormed right back as Marcus Stoinis dismissed Tripathi (19). Skipper Eoin Morgan (0) and Sunil Narine (0) disappointed with the bat and as a result, KKR was reduced to 74/4 in the 11th over. KKR's innings fell further into a slump in the 13th over as the set batsman Gill (43) handed a simple catch to Steve Smith at wide long-on off the bowling of Avesh Khan, reducing the side to 82/5. Dinesh Karthik next joined Andre Russell in the middle and the duo put on 27 runs for the sixth wicket. In the final two overs, Russell and Cummins managed to add 31 more runs to the total, and as a result, KKR posted a score of more than the 150-run mark.
