Sharjah: Shikhar Dhawan’s maiden ton (101 off 58) guided Delhi Capitals to convincing five wicket win over Chennai Super Kings in the 34th match of IPL 2020, at the Sharjah Cricket Stadium, here on Saturday.
Chennai Super Kings batting first, posted 179/4 in 20 overs courtesy brilliant knocks by Faf du Plessis ( 58 off 47) and Ambati Rayudu (45 not out off 25). Shane Watson (36 off 28) Ravindra Jadeja (33 not out off 13) also made valuable contributions with the bat for CSK.
In reply, Delhi Capitals scored 185/5 in19.5 overs, winning the match by five wickets.
With the win, DC reclaimed the top spot on the points table with 7 wins from 9 matches.
Batting first, Chennai were dealt the third ball as Sam Curran (0). Till then Chennai’s account was not opened. Faf du Plessis then brought a half-century partnership with Shane Watson back to the team.
Watson 36, while Duplessis was out for 58 from 47 balls with 8 boundaries. Captain Mahendra Singh Dhoni could not do anything special after his dismissal. He scored just 3 runs in 5 balls.
A 50-run 23-ball partnership between Ravindra Jadeja and Ambati Rayudu brought CSK to a mammoth score. Jadeja scored 33 from 13 balls, while Rayudu scored an unbeaten 45 from 25 balls. For the opposition team, Enrich Nortje got 2, while Tushar Deshpande and Kagiso Rabada got 1-1 success.
Chasing the target, Delhi got the first blow on the second ball in the form of Prithvi Shaw (0). Until that time, the capitals had not even opened their account. After this, Ajinkya Rahane (8) also kept going. From here, Shikhar Dhawan took over the team in partnership of 68 runs with captain Shreyas Iyer.
Shreyas Iyer was dismissed for 23 runs, but Dhawan held one end. Opener Shikhar Dhawan hit his first century of his IPL career in 57 balls. Delhi needed 16 runs to win in the last over, Dhawan completed a century with a single off the first ball. After this Akshar Patel hit the team with 3 sixes and won the team with 1 ball remaining.
Dhawan returned 101 not out with the help of 15 boundaries in 54 balls, while Akshar Patel returned 21 not out with the help of 3 sixes in 5 balls. For Chennai, Deepak Chahar got 2, while Karran, Shardul Thakur and Bravo got 1-1 wickets.
