IPL 2020 | DC vs MI: Hits and Flops as Boult-Bumrah put Capitals on brink

Facing a severe downturn in the last three matches, the Delhi Capitals were hoping to turn around things in the game against the Mumbai Indians but Trent Boult had other ideas. Boult was as lethal as he has been with the new ball in the 13th edition of the Indian Premier League as the Delhi Capitals were made to look like a mirror image of the side that had won seven games out of their first nine this season. 

The defeat, as well as the manner in which a Rohit-Pandya-less Mumbai Indians decimated them should ring alarm bells in the Capitals camp considering the heavy defeat has plummeted their net run rate below zero. This in-turn is threatening their place in the top four in case of another loss in the next game against the Royal Challengers Bangalore.

Here we have rated the best and the worst performers of the day that caused great jubilation in the Mumbai camp while the Delhi side is left to ask tough questions from themselves.

Hits

Trent Boult

When Kieron Pollard won the toss and elected to bowl first, the decision surprised many but the prolific MI stand-in captain could see what others overlooked in the pitch and also the wind. Trent Boult was assigned the task he has been doing for fun with the Mumbai Indians this season and New Zealand in his entire career. He did not disappoint his captain as he drew Shikhar Dhawan to a drive off a ball that was pitched away from the driving length. Shikhar Dhawan has epitomised what has gone wrong for the Delhi Capitals in the last few matches as he was dismissed for two consecutive ducks after two back-to-back centuries. 

Boult also got the better of a returning Prithvi Shaw whom the management backed after Ajinkya Rahane failed to provide solidity at the top. Boult broke the back of the Delhi’s batting when he proved to be too smart for Shaw while the right-hander tried to pull him off a length.

Not considered as a specialist T20 bowler, Trent Boult has been quite a revelation for the Mumbai Indians in this season of the IPL and both the captains - Rohit Sharma and Kieron Pollard have used him judiciously with the new ball. The bowling line up of Mumbai was anyway impressive with the likes of Jasprit Bumrah but the inclusion of Boult has given the captains a cushion of keeping Bumrah safe for the latter overs of the game when batsmen go into the zone of hitting at every ball.

Jasprit Bumrah

If Trent Boult’s early burst with the new ball did not make the match feel like the first session of a Test match as the commentators Harsha Bhogle and Danny Morrison pointed out, Jasprit Bumrah gave everything in his tank to prove it was indeed one. After Boult struck gold with the new ball, Pollard held Bumrah back to challenge Shreyas Iyer and Rishabh Pant and introduced him only in the ninth over - first time ever since he started playing in the cash-rich league. After a quiet first over, Bumrah ran riot with the Delhi’s batting line up by picking up two big wickets of Marcus Stoinis in the 12th over of the innings.

Stoinis was new to the crease when he came against Bumrah and the Indian ace made sure that his innings was a very short one with a Jaffa that would prove to be wicket-taking delivery on the upcoming tour of Australia. A good length on the off stump reared off to take Stoinis’ edge and the Capitals were down to drain after the wicket. The over was not done as an off-colour Rishabh Pant was found rooted to the crease to a delivery that straightened a bit from round the wicket angle.

Bumrah has been a lynchpin of the Mumbai Indians’ success in the last few seasons since the time he debuted for the franchise in the IPL and it seems that he is getting only better with the number of matches increasing in his career.

Ishan Kishan

Chasing a mere 111, Mumbai’s openers Ishan Kishan and Quinton de Kock had a fairly easy task at hand but it was important for the duo to not lose wickets in the first couple of overs with Shreyas Iyer bowling Ravichandran Ashwin in a tactical move against the left-handers.

Kishan has batted with absolute domination and flamboyance in the season but on the day when the two points were crucial for the team to secure a top-two place on the points table, he also showed excellent composure to set his eyes in before going berserk in his usual style of batting.

Once he got his eyes in, he unleashed his full range of shots and none including Kagiso Rabada were spared as the star bowler again struggled to produce magic for the Capitals. Ishan was brought into the playing XI when Saurabh Tiwary was injured and boy, hasn’t he nailed his position in the team with brilliant performances? He was rewarded for his performances with a chance to open the batting when Rohit Sharma was ruled out for the last few games and by the looks of it, he has owned that spot as well and it could take the might of Rohit Sharma only to dislodge him from the top of the order.

Flops

Shreyas Iyer

Shreyas Iyer has batted well in the tournament and like his team, has started well, but has tapered off in the last few games. On the day when he needed to show his A-game against the thunderbolts of Trent Boult, he showed signs of conservatism and went into a shell. He started very slowly and when the wickets started failing around him could not quite catch up. 

He had his eyes set on spinners and was able to send Jayant Yadav downtown but Rahul Chahar ended his misery at the crease. He looked perplexed as a batsman and could not quite figure the bowlers he could target in order to increase the run rate.

He has shown excellent signs of not showing emotions on the field but it looks like the series of his own and team’s failures are catching upto him as his tense faces in the field depicting the emotions going inside him as the team is on the brink of elimination after such a fabulous start.

Prithvi Shaw

Prithvi Shaw started the IPL 2020 with the promise of class and substance he could offer to the team that already had too many stroke makers. But, the think tank led by Ricky Ponting saw more promises in his belligerent than in the class of Ajinkya Rahane. 

Shaw started in the playing XI of the team and was on and off with the bat before the management ran out of patience with him and dropped him. He was brought back into the playing XI when his replacement - Rahane, too, failed to live up to the expectations.

The team management again backed him to come good in a very big match when the capitals were chasing a hard-earned win but Shaw was reckless as he has been blamed for throughout his career and tried very hard to get out of Boult. After fetching a streaky boundary by slogging a good length ball, Shaw was found too excited to pull on a ball that was not short to be pulled and the Capitals were back in the hole they so badly wanted to get out of so early in the third over. Shaw could have shown restraint in that Boult’s over, especially as he had already got two boundaries in it but he could not resist going all out against Boult and perished in the process and took down the Capitals with him very early in the game.

The experts had raised scepticism about the Delhi Capitals’ loss of form in their last three games preceding the one against the Mumbai Indians and their reservations about the Shreyas Iyer’s side is not turning out to be completely out of place. The Delhi Capitals looked shell shocked after a horror show with the bat and it will be important for the Iyer-Ponting duo to motivate the players to find their mojo back.

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