New Delhi: In an otherwise bleak season, Delhi Capitals had won their previous four games chasing, three of them away from a home ground they have eyed with trepidation this IPL season. On Monday at Dharamsala, skipper Axar Patel deciding to bowl on winning the toss thus didn’t come as a surprise, although Punjab Kings had left DC gutted by chasing down 265 when they met earlier in IPL 2026.
One trend seen every IPL season is that teams slipping down the points table struggle to get things right. For DC, it has been finding the right balance for their unsettled batting line-up. The venue in altitude though left Capitals feeling the high as they handed PBKS their fourth loss on the trot.
Chasing 211 after PBKS made 210/5 following a spirited bowling fightback by Capitals—the game saw all 20 overs bowled by pacers in a nod to the seam-friendly conditions—Capitals overcame early hiccups to reach 216/7 in 19 overs.
After an early batting wobble, Axar found his form in time to hit a 30-ball 56 before David Miller, the finisher left out of the side as DC lost two previous games at home, returned to hammer 51 off 28 balls. The home stretch was then taken over by Ashutosh Sharma (24) and Madhav Tiwary (18*), who completed an excellent all-round effort.
Whenever the PBKS batting is humming, there are invariably two men at the forefront. Opener Priyansh Arya’s power-hitting and the easy stroke-making of skipper Shreyas Iyer. The left-handed Arya raced to a 24-ball fifty after taking PBKS to 72/0 in the Powerplay phase.
Arya’s 56 (33b, 2×4, 6×6) set the tone but Iyer’s unbeaten 59 (36b, 5×4, 3×6) to guide PBKS to 210/5 revealed the challenge thrown up by the moving ball in Dharamsala’s altitude. Axar used only the pacers—Mitchell Starc, Lungi Ngidi, Auqib Nabi, Mukesh Kumar and the impressive Tiwari. They did an impressive job, reeling in the scoring which saw no over between Nos 6 and 15 go for more than 10 runs.
DC’s reply began disastrously. With Abhishek Porel beaten for pace and bowled by Yash Thakur and the Powerplay sputtering, KL Rahul had to push the scoring. The man whose 152* in their previous meeting went in vain only managed to miscue Arshdeep Singh to deep fine leg and into the safe hands of Marco Jansen.
Axar produced a fighting knock. But with Miller set at the other end, the skipper could not get the distance, holing out Marcus Stoinis’ slower ball to long on. Like DC, Punjab too stuck to pace, and got their lengths right until they were taken apart in the final overs. Arshdeep had a great spell of 2/21 with support from Jansen, Yash Thakur, Ben Dwarshuis and Stoinis for the most part of the DC innings.
Starc went for 22 runs in the first over with two sixes (both Arya), a four (Prabhsimran Singh) and five wides. Auqib Nabi, the red-ball king of Jammu and Kashmir’s Ranji Trophy win still finding his feet in the IPL, conceded 12 runs but bowled excellent lengths and lines to recover for a spell of 4-0-32-0, done with the eighth over.
Tiwary got Arya to flick to Nabi at deep third man, but Cooper Connolly made a valuable 38 (27b) and his 83-run stand with Shreyas Iyer seemed to have given PBKS a winning total.
Brief scores: PBKS 210/5 (P Arya 56, S Iyer 59*, M Starc 2/57, M Tiwari 2/40). DC 216/7 in 19 overs (Axar 56, D Miller 51, Arshdeep 2/21, Y Thakur 2/55). DC won by 3 wickets.