XtraTime Web Desk: After a very thrilling match between Delhi Capitals and Kings XI Punjab, both the teams ended on one level and IPL 2020 got its first ‘super over’ in the second match of the season.
Delhi reached to 157 runs in the first innings after Marcus Stoinis scored 53 runs in just 21 balls. In the starting of the 2nd innings, Kings XI Punjab had a good start but with a loss of 4 wickets in just 13 deliveries. Punjab were 40 for 4 after 6 overs. Their Captain, K L Rahul was dismissed on 21 and things weren’t going okay for Punjab at all.
Mayank Agarwal then completely changed the game for Punjab. Mayank scored 89 runs of 58 balls and was dismissed when his team needed 1 run from just 1 ball. However, Chris Jordan couldn’t do it for his team and was caught out and that led to the first super over of this year’s IPL.
In the super over, K L Rahul and Nicolas Pooran came to bat for Punjab. Rabada was given the responsibility to deliver for Delhi and so did he in style. After giving away 2 runs in the first ball, Rabada took back to back wickets of KL Rahul and Nicolas Pooran and Delhi had a easy target of just 3 runs.
Shami just had 3 runs to defend which is always a difficult ask. Shreyas Iyer and Rishabh Pant came out to bat for the Capitals and did it in just 2 balls and Delhi Capitals won the match in the super over.
With his amazing performance with bat and ball, Marcus Stoinis was chosen the Man of the Match. After receiving his award, Stonis said, “It’s a weird game, sometimes the luck goes your way, but it’s easy to become the villain from the hero. So it’s important to enjoy the good days”
Stonis also enjoying the fact that IPL is back. He said, “It’s nice that the IPL has gotten going again, and tonight has been great entertainment.”
When asked about the fact why he didn’t bat or ball in super over, Stoinis replied, “I thought KG bowled a beautiful over, and I don’t have any qualms about not batting in the super over – I think the left-right batting combination was the right thing.”
After winning it for the team in the Super Over, Kagiso Rabada said, “There’ll always be nerves for me no matter how long I play when things get tight. Luckily it came off today.”
While talking about his mentality going into a super over, Rabada said, “It just depends what works for me on the day and just getting a feel for what might work as well. Today it was just mixing the lengths up and it worked. There’s decent bounce in this wicket, and the boundaries are quite big. So it’ll take a bit to clear it. So I backed myself.”
The Delhi Capitals captain, Shreyas Iyer said on the post conference, “It was difficult to see the game turning in different diretions. We are used to this. Even last season we faced these. KG is the winning performer, and the way Stoinis batted was game-changing. Our top-order batsmen are difficult to stop like Prithvi.”
When asked his innings, he said, “It wasn’t easy from the outset to start hitting immediately, and Rishabh and I batted well in the middle to anchor the innings.”
“Catching has been difficult because of the lights right in our eyes, but that’s not an excuse because we have had practice, so we need to strengthen that area”. This is what Shreyas said about missing Mayank’s catch in the crucial moment of the match.
Shreyas also had a couple of good things to say about Ashwin and also gave a small update on Ashwin’s injury. The captain said, “Credit to Ashwin, he almost changed the game in that over. It’s up to the physio but Ashwin said he is available for the next game”.
In the post match conference, the losing captain KL Rahul said it was not easy for them. He said, “It is bittersweet. If at the end of 10 overs, if you had said this match is going to a Superover, I would have taken it. It’s still our first game, lots of learning”.
Rahul had many positive things to say on Mayank Agarwal’s performance. He said, “He (Mayank) was unbelievable and to get a game that close was magical. He’s been doing well in Tests and to get the game that close again brings a lot of confidence in the group.”