Rishabh Pant failed to score in his first match as Lucknow Super Giants captain and then he saw his new team snatch defeat from the jaws of victory against his old team Delhi Capitals in Visakhapatnam on Monday. Ashutosh Sharma, Delhi Capitals’ Impact Sub, made a serious impact with an unbeaten 66 off 31 balls to steer the team to a one-wicket win with just 3 balls left in the game.
And he does it in 𝙎𝙏𝙔𝙇𝙀
— IndianPremierLeague (@IPL) March 24, 2025
Ashutosh Sharma, take a bow!
A #TATAIPL classic in Vizag
Updateshttps://t.co/aHUCFODDQL#DCvLSG | @DelhiCapitals pic.twitter.com/rVAfJMqfm7
The Vizag heist
DC were without KL Rahul, who became a father on Monday but the India star would be delighted with the way his teammates rallied to forge one of the most dramatic wins in the history of the IPL.
Chasing 210, DC were rattled early when they lost Jake Fraser-McGurk and Abhisek Porel in the first over to Shardul Thakur. Delhi were in further trouble after Manimaran Siddharth dismissed Abhishek Porel for a duck.
Faf du Plessis, in DC as vice-captain after a couple of seasons as captain of Royal Challengers Bangalore, scored a rapid 29 but did not last longer to make a more significant impact. Axar Patel, the DC captain, is in prime form with bat and when he fell for an 11-ball 22, you sensed it was a wasted opportunity from a proven match-winner.
Tristan Stubbs chipped in with 34 off 22 to keep DC on track against an inexperienced LSG attack but it ultimately came down to two little-known Indian players, who were talked by Delhi mentor Kevin Pietersen in an interview with the broadcasters during the match.
Ashutosh Sharma: New hero for Delhi
Ashutosh Sharma and Vipraj Nigam added 55 runs in less than 4 overs to bring the Delhi Capitals chase back on track. Manimaran Siddharth and Digvesh Rathi toiled heroically even as Ravi Bishnoi conceded 53 for his 2 wickets.
While Ashutosh Sharma continued to plunder the runs and Delhi inched closer to the target, for some inexplicable reason, Pant did not bring on Shardul Thakur, who had bowled under pressure for Chennai Super Kings in the death.
Ashutosh Sharma reached his half-century and then hit Prince Yadav for a six and a four off the final two balls of the penultimate over to leave DC with only 6 off the final over.
The job of bowling the final over went to Shahbaz Ahmed, whose slot ball was sent to the sight screen by Ashutosh Sharma for a six and a win for the ages.
Earlier in the evening, LSG began a new era under Pant with gutso, thanks to frenetic knocks from Mitchell Marsh (72 off 36) and Nicholas Pooran (75 off 30). There wasn’t much from the rest of the Lucknow batting line-up, with Aiden Markram scoring only 15 and David Miller only managing to deposit Mohit Sharma for sixes off the last two balls of the innings.
Delhi Capitals did well to pull things back in the second half of the LSG innings – Kuldeep Yadav was the pick of their bowlers, taking 2 for 20 off four overs while Mitchell Starc, who leaked 28 runs off his first two overs after running into the other Mitchell from LSG, returned to pick 3 wickets in his second spell.
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