Delhi Capitals (DC) senior pacer Mukesh Kumar batted against the explosive Rajasthan Royals (RR) batsman in the 56th match of the Indian Premier League 2024 (IPL 2024) at the Arun Jaitley Stadium in Delhi on Tuesday, May 7 ), Rovman Powell, to .
Rajasthan Royals won the toss and elected to bowl first in the match. They made two changes to the team as Shimron Hetmyer and Dhruv Jurel were unavailable for selection due to problems. RR brought Shubham Dubey and Donovan Ferreira into the team. Delhi Capitals also made two big changes by bringing in Ishant Sharma and Gulbadin Naib.
Thanks to the brilliant batting performances of Abishek Porel (65), Jake Fraser-McGurk (50) and Tristan Stubbs (41), Delhi Capitals posted a whopping total score of 221/8.
In defending the total, the Delhi Capitals bowlers were the best and kept the RR batters quiet, with the exception of Sanju Samson. The RR skipper displayed a batting masterclass, hitting 86 runs off 46 balls before he was dismissed by Mukesh Kumar in the 16th over.
In the end it was 29 for 6 and Mukesh Kumar bowled the final over. On the first ball, Trent Boult took a single and gave the strike rate to Rovman Powell in the hope that the West Indies batsman could hit some boundaries.
That wasn’t the case at all as on the second ball of the 20th over, Mukesh Kumar bowled a full ball to the off-stump at 132 kmph which hit Rovman Powell’s bat and bounced onto the stumps. RR was stopped at 201/8 and DC won by 20 runs.
Watch: Mukesh Kumar overwhelms Rovman Powell
Powell misses, Mukesh scores 🎯
The Delhi Capitals are only just away from victory ✌️
Watch the game LIVE @StarSportsIndia And @JioCinema 💻📱#TATAIPL | #DCvRR pic.twitter.com/HslOARrYiF
— IndianPremierLeague (@IPL) May 7, 2024
As for Rovman Powell, the batsman has received good support from the Rajasthan Royals team management but he is yet to serve the team well. So far, he has scored scores of 11, 26, 27 and 13 in the 4 innings he has batted
Rovman Powell revealed ahead of the game that there was great communication and clarity in the RR camp on what was the reason for their success. He also talked about his punch and said:
“I think it’s the communication between the captain, the coaches and the players. Communication contributes significantly to this, communication creates clarity throughout the group and I think that has been a driving force for our success so far. As a batsman, you get excited, but this.” The most important thing is that you do the basic things right when you bat. I think it was easy to think about. Luckily I was there last, I only missed one full toss in such close games I can’t think about it too much, Bhuvi bowled a great over. Next time I’m out there, hopefully I can get my team across the finish line.
Rovman Powell added that he needs to prove his worth to the team and revealed that there is a lot of planning going on behind the scenes at RR. He stated:
“There’s a lot to prove, but it’s nothing personal. I am here to do a job for Rajasthan and that is what I will do. One thing I like about this team is the way they plan, we as West Indies when we can plan.” So I can get into the specific details, that’s something I look at from a personal perspective and would like to see how I can convey this to my fellow West Indians.