Delhi Capitals all-rounder Mitchell Marsh said he is happy that the former finalists are peaking at the right time as the playoffs race of IPL 2022 reaches the business end. Delhi stitched two back-to-back wins for the first time in the season and the 17-run win over Punjab Kings on Monday, May 17 propelled them to the top 4 in the points table.
Delhi Capitals beat Rajasthan Royals by 8 wickets on May 11 and followed it up with a comprehensive 17-run win over Punjab kings at the DY Patil Stadium on Monday. Marsh played a crucial role as he hit a solid 63 to help Delhi Capitals post 159.
IPL 2022, PBKS vs DC Highlights
While the total did not look enough at the mid-innings break, Delhi Capitals bowlers came out all guns blazing to restrict Punjab Kings to 142/9 in 20 overs. Shardul Thakur was the pick of the bowlers with 4 wickets while spinners Kuldeep Yadav and Axar Patel picked up 4 wickets, conceding just 27 runs between them.
Delhi moved to the 4th spot, displacing Royal Challengers Bangalore from the top 4. Rishabh Pant’s men are at 14 points from 13 matches with a better NRR than RCB in the IPL 2022 points table.
“I think that’s our first back-to-back win of the season. We spoke about that today. It’s been one of those seasons where we’ve been stop start. In long tournaments like this, it’s about peaking at the right time. I think over the last week or 10 days, we’ve played some really good cricket and that’s a really good sign.
“We’ve got one more to go. We know if we win that, we’ll be in the finals and we can give it a real good shake. I’ve got great belief in this team. We’ve got a lot of talent across the board and if we can string one more together going into the finals, it’ll give us great momentum,” Marsh told Star Sports.
Delhi have fate in their own hands as a win against Mumbai Indians in their final league match on May 21 will all but help them book a place in the top 4.
Delhi have found new heroes in every match in the 2nd half of the season as the likes of David Warner and Rovman Powell have been consistent with the bat. Khaleel Ahmed and Kuldeep Yadav were excellent with the ball and the likes of Axar and Shardul showing signs of return to form with the ball augurs well for them.
MARSH ON POWERPLAY APPROACH
On Monday, Sarfaraz Khan, who returned to the squad in place of KS Bharat, came up with a counter-attacking knock after they lost David Warner to Liam Livingstone in the first delivery of the match.
Marsh heaped rich praise on Sarfaraz and shed light on his mentality of batting in the powerplay.
“Get as many as I can in the Powerplay before it starts turning. For the last sort of 18 months, I’ve had that mentality in the Powerplay. I thought it was a really good partnership with Sarfaraz. He played some amazing shots. It would’ve been nice to get out of the Powerplay one down and then we probably could have kept going. But our innings was sort of stop start with wickets. Credit goes to the bowlers,” he said.
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