Mumbai, (Samajweekly) A whirlwind opening partnership of 83 between David Warner (60 not out) and Prithvi Shaw (41 off 20 balls) sealed a nine-wicket win for Delhi Capitals against Punjab Kings in the IPL 2022 at the Brabourne Stadium here on Wednesday.
After the bowlers put up an impressive show to bowl out Punjab for just 115, Warner and Shaw’s fourth consecutive fifty-plus stand made short work of the chase completed with 57 balls to spare.
Warner and Shaw came out all guns blazing by bringing up the half-century of their partnership in 3.3 overs, the fastest fifty by a team in IPL 2022. Shaw had initial difficulty against in-swing from Vaibhav Arora but took three boundaries in the opening over.
The dynamic duo then took a boundary each off Kagiso Rabada to pile more misery on Punjab. Arora came under further attack as Warner carted him for back-to-back boundaries while Shaw swung him hard over long-on for six. Warner took two more boundaries off Rabada before amassing 17 runs with Shaw off Arshdeep Singh’s opening over to effectively seal the fate of the match in power-play.
Post power-play, Rahul Chahar broke the 83-run opening stand as Shaw slog-swept, only for long-on to balance himself and take the catch over his left shoulder. Warner continued to deal in boundaries, whacking a pull over deep mid-wicket fence off Rabada followed by clearing the same region with a slog-sweep.
Warner registered a hat-trick of fifties in the tournament with a four steered through third man off Nathan Ellis before finishing off the innings with another four through mid-wicket off Chahar to seal a thumping win for Delhi.
Brief Scores: Punjab Kings 115 all out in 20 overs (Jitesh Sharma 32, Mayank Agarwal 24; Axar Patel 2/10, Lalit Yadav 2/11) lost to Delhi Capitals 119/1 in 10.3 overs (David Warner 60 not out, Prithvi Shaw 41; Rahul Chahar 1/21) by nine wickets
