Josh Hazlewood and Bhuvneshwar Kumar stunned the Delhi Capitals with an exhibition of fast swing bowling as they set the Royal Challengers Bengaluru on their way to a thumping nine-wicket win in their Tata IPL clash at the Arun Jaitley Stadium in Delhi on Monday night.
Kumar, 3-5 in three overs, and Hazelwood, 4-12 in 3.3 overs, ripped through the Capitals' top order as they crashed to the lowest ever powerplay score in the history of the IPL, which is now 13-6, before the hosts staged a slight recovery to reach 75 all out in the 17th over.
In response the RCB top order was in no mood to mess around, as Devdutt Padikkal, 34no off 13 balls (3x4; 3x6), Virat Kohli, 23* off 15 (1x4; 2x6), and Jacob Bethell, 20 off 11 (1x4; 2x6), hammered them to a monstrous win in just 6.3 overs.
Done in style, Done with conviction ✅✅@rcbtweets claim 2️⃣ points registering a record chase in New Delhi 🔥
— IndianPremierLeague (@IPL) April 27, 2026
Scorecard ▶️ https://t.co/HIiNNEutP0#TATAIPL | #KhelBindaas | #DCvRCB pic.twitter.com/IWcxJ3PLkV
At the start of play RCB won the toss and chose to bowl, and got off to a dream start as the second ball of the match saw Kumar send a vicious in-swinger into debutant Sahil Parakh, who saw his middle stump uprooted.
The first two balls of the second over then saw Hazlewood strike, as KL Rahul (1), who hit 150 in his last match, top edged his second ball to keeper Jitesh Sharma, followed the very next ball by Samir Rizvi who edged behind the stumps, with the score 2-3.
In the third over Kumar picked up his own double strike, as Tristan Stubbs (5) edged to Padikkal in the slips, and a couple of balls later captain Axar Patel was caught behind by Sharma for a third-ball duck as they slumped to 7-5.
Hazlewood picked up his third in the fourth over, as a superb bouncer was fended by Nitish Rana to Padikkal, and at 8-6 the Capitals were essentially dead and buried.
A Dream Start! 🤩
— IndianPremierLeague (@IPL) April 27, 2026
Bhuvneshwar Kumar and Josh Hazlewood swing #DC’s fortunes into doldrums 👊
Relive their spell ▶️ https://t.co/CgtgazSP4O#TATAIPL | #KhelBindaas | #DCvRCB pic.twitter.com/dXL5WhU3e2
But Abhishek Porel, 30 off 33 balls (3x4), was then called upon as an early impact sub, and along with David Miller, 19 off 18 (3x4), they tried to fight back, however they were eventually picked off with Kyle Jamieson, 12 off 13 (1x4; 1x6), the only other positive contributor.
The RCB chase was then utter carnage as they looked to put the beleaguered hosts out of their misery, as Jamieson went for 42 runs in his three overs, but also got the only wicket of Bethell, caught by Thangarasu Natarajan.
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.