IPL 2023: Phil Salt’s 87 guides Delhi Capitals to seven-wicket win over Royal Challengers Bangalore

It’s taken them some time but Delhi Capitals finally came up with a statement performance and comfortably defeated Royal Challengers Bangalore at the Arun Jaitley Stadium, Delhi. David Warner and Co registered a resounding seven wicket win over Faf Du Plessis-led RCB with 20 balls to spare.

The encounter between the two sides eventually boiled down to backing a player to come good, eventually. While Mahipal Lomror (54 off 29) did that for RCB, who backed him to come good through the season, DC took a punt on Phil Salt after replacing Prithvi Shaw. It was the Englishman’s 87 off 45 that trumped Lomror’s first IPL fifty.

IPL 2023: Virat Kohli becomes first batter to cross 7,000 runs in tournament – ‘Full of gratitude’

Having won the toss, RCB’s foundation was laid by yet another solid opening partnership of 81 runs between Virat Kohli and Faf Du Plessis. After the captain’s dismissal in the eleventh over, Kohli tried to hold an end for RCB even as Glenn Maxwell was dismissed for a duck. However, Lomror played a fine innings to propel RCB to a competitive 181/4.

In the chase, the opening duo of Salt and Warner kept up with the chase before the latter was dismissed with DC at 60/1 in 5.1 overs. They stitched a 60-run stand with Warner and then put together 59 runs with Mitchell Marsh, who smashed 26. Then he finally gave a glimpse of why he was such a sought after asset, as he scored a fantastic 45-ball 87.

He got into a mid-pitch exchange with opposition pace bowler Mohammed Siraj and the verbal duel only spurred him to finish with six sixes in his 45-ball knock. But then, led the charge against Siraj, one of the IPL’s top powerplay bowlers, hitting him for two sixes and a four. In total, he hit six sixes in his innings.

It was only in the sixteenth over that Karn Sharma was able to dismiss him but by then, DC had nearly sealed the deal. Rilee Rossouw hit an unbeaten 35 off 22 balls and sealed the match with a six. Eventually, all it needed for DC was 16.4 overs to win the game.

The win saw DC climb off the bottom of the table, with a boost to their NRR as well. RCB meanwhile are stuck at fifth, and took a further blow to their NRR. The league season is heading to quite the finale.