The Delhi Capitals were in an absolute shambles by the end of the powerplay, after Bhuvneshwar Kumar and Josh Hazelwood ran through their top order, reducing them to the lowest ever powerplay score in the history of the Tata IPL, 13-6, in their clash at the Arun Jaitley Stadium in Delhi on Monday evening.
Kumar struck in the first over of the match, as a vicious in-swinging yorker uprooted the middle stump of debutant Sahil Parakh for a second-ball duck, and followed that up by having Tristan Stubbs (5) caught by Devdutt Padikkal in the slips and captain Axar Patel for a third-ball duck by keeper Jitesh Sharma in his second over, the third of the match.
Hazelwood picked up two wickets with his first two balls, KL Rahul (1), who scored 150 in his last match, top edging to Sharma at the start of the second over, followed by Samir Rizvi edging to Sharma first ball, and also accounted for Nitish Rana (1) in the fourth over, caught by Padikkal.
When Hazelwood picked up his third wicket the Capitals were in huge strife on 9-6 in the fourth over, and despite captain Rajat Patidar keeping his strike bowlers on over the whole powerplay, they were unable to get another, leaving David Miller (4*) and Abhishek Poral (1*) at the crease.
DELHI CAPITALS: Sahil Parakh, KL Rahul (wk), Nitish Rana, Sameer Rizvi, Tristan Stubbs, David Miller, Axar Patel (capt), Dushmantha Chameera, Kuldeep Yadav, Thangarasu Natarajan, Kyle Jamieson.
ROYAL CHALLENGERS BENGALURU: Virat Kohli, Devdutt Padikkal, Rajat Patidar (capt), Jitesh Sharma (wk), Tim David, Romario Shepherd, Krunal Pandya, Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Josh Hazlewood, Suyash Sharma, Rasikh Dar.