KL Rahul smashed a well-paced century, his fifth in the Indian Premier League (IPL), in the Delhi Capitals’ must-win encounter against the Gujarat Titans at the Arun Jaitley Stadium on Sunday. Rahul brought up his 100 in 60 deliveries, in an innings peppered with 11 boundaries and 5 sixes.
Rahul started a bit cautiously against GT, getting to his fifty in 35 balls before switching gears. On course of the innings, Rahul saw both Faf du Plessis (5) and Abishek Porel (30) lose their wickets at the other end as he kept DC steady in the crucial encounter.
Earlier, Gujarat Titans skipper Shubman Gill won the toss and elected to field against Delhi Capitals. The Titans have brought in pacer Kagiso Rabada in place of Gerald Coetzee. For the Capitals, Vipraj Nigam replaces Madhav Tiwari while Mustafizur Rahman comes in for Mitchell Starc, who has opted not to return for the remainder of the IPL.
In the other match of the day, Left-arm spinner Harpreet Brar bowled a match-turning spell after Nehal Wadhera and Shashank Singh made bruising fifties as Punjab Kings edged closer to an IPL playoff berth with a 10-run win over Rajasthan Royals.
Brar, who came in as a substitute for skipper Shreyas Iyer — possibly unwell due to extreme heat — was introduced in the fifth over and the left-arm spinner walked away with an impressive 3/22 in four overs, helping PBKS to restrict RR to 209/7 in the chase of 220.
The Punjab side had earlier made 219 for five riding on an unbeaten on 59 off 30 deliveries (5×4, 3×6) by Shashank and Wadhera (70, 37b, 5×4, 5×6).
With this win, PBKS (NRR: +0.38) climbed to 17 points and they are second on the table behind leaders Royal Challengers Bengaluru (17 points, +0.48) on net run rate difference. The Ricky Ponting-coached side needs just one more point to secure a playoff berth for the first time since 2014.
