IPL 2023: Warner, Axar shine as DC beat KKR by 4-wickets to register their first win of season

KKR showed mettle with bowl and took the game to the last over. For KKR, Nitish Rana led from the front and took two scalps while Varun Chakravarthy also bagged the crucial two wickets including David Warner's dismissal. DC Captain David Warner played a match-winning knock of 57 off 51 balls.

For DC, Ishant, Axar, Nortje and Kuldeep bagged two wickets respectively while Mukesh Kumar scalped one. For KKR, Jason Roy scored the highest with 43 off 39 while Andre Russell played an unbeaten crucial knock of 38 in 31 deliveries. KKR threw wickets away in the powerplay and paid the price as they could only post 127 runs on the scoreboard.

Chasing the lowest total of 127 in this year's IPL, David Warner seemed in his natural style, hitting bowler from the start. However, Prithvi Shaw continued to disappoint with his bad form, he gave his wicket to Varun Chakravarthy scoring just 13 off 11 balls in the 5th over.

DC reached the 50-run mark with ease in 5.3 overs. By punishing Sunil Nairne's 6th over conceding 17 runs, DC scored 61/1 after the powerplay.

KKR's light of hope came with the dismissal of Mitchell Marsh followed by Phil Salt in the 9th and 10 overs.

Warner clinched his fourth fifty this season off 33 balls comprising ten fours. Varun with his second wicket gave a big breakthrough to KKR by clearing set-in batter Warner at 57 off 41 balls.

Anukul Roy dismissed Manish Pandey at 21 off 23 balls and Nitish Rana sent Aman Hakim Khan back to the dressing room on a duck. Due to the dismissal of batters in regular intervals, DC struggled in the mid-overs as they did not hit a single boundary after the 16th over onwards. This brought the match to the last over finish.

In the last over, DC needed 7 runs. With the help of one no-ball, DC chased down the total in 19.2 overs with four wickets.

Earlier, opted to field first, Delhi Capitals bowlers got the better of KKR by dismissing Kolkata's three batters in under powerplay. In the second over, Mukesh Kumar dismissed Litton Das while Anrich Nortje got the better of Venkatesh Iyer. In the 6th over, Ishant Sharma sent KKR captain Nitish Rana packing while Axar Patel got the wicket of Mandeep Singh.

Jason Roy then tried to handle the charge as he smoked a six over Kuldeep Yadav in the 10th over of the game. Axar then delivered a tunning over to send Rinku Singh packing for 6. In the 12th over of the game, Ishant bagged his second wicket of the match as he dismissed Sunil Narine for 4. Playing his first IPL match since 2021, Ishant showed all his experience and finished his 4-overs spell with a figure of 2-19.

Narine's wicket invited power hitter Andre Russell to the crease. The duo of Russell and Roy slammed Mitchell Marsh for 15 runs with the help of one maximum and four in the 14th over. In the 15th over, Kuldeep Yadav was brought back into the attack and the Chinaman delivered a fine ball to dismiss set batter Roy for 43. In the same over, Kuldeep removed new batter Anukul Roy for a duck.

Anrich Nortje snapped the wicket of Umesh Yadav in the 16th over of the innings. Russell brought up his team's total beyond the 100-run mark in the 17th over of the game.

In the last over, Russell slammed a hat-trick of six to pile 19 runs in Mukesh Kumar's spell and took his team's total to 127.

Brief score: Kolkata Knight Riders 127 (Jason Roy 43, Andre Russell 38*; Axar Patel 2-13) vs Delhi Capitals 128 (David Warner 57, Manish Pandey 21, Nitish Rana 2-17). (ANI)