Delhi earn 4-wicket win over slumping Kolkata in IPL

Left-arm wrist spinner Kuldeep Yadav and fast bowler Mustafizur Rahman set up Delhi Capitals’ four-wicket win over Kolkata Knight Riders in the Indian Premier League on Thursday.

Kuldeep demolished the top order with 4-14 and Bangladesh’s left-armer Mustafizur picked up three wickets in the final over to restrict Kolkata at 146-9.

Delhi overcame a middle-order collapse against fast bowler Umesh Yadav (3-24) as Rovman Powell’s unbeaten 33 off 16 balls carried his team to 150-6 with an over to spare and handed Kolkata their fifth straight loss.

“I know I am in good form, so I keep trusting myself, keep trusting the work I did before IPL and keep trusting the work I did in the nets before these games,” said Powell, who hit Shreyas Iyer over long-on for a six.

“I think it’s a feel-good factor. A lot of bases have been covered. It’s just for us now to put the pieces together.”

Kolkata’s batting woes continued as Aaron Finch (3) was clean bowled by Chetan Sakariya in only the second over and Venkatesh Iyer’s (6) run of poor form continued when he holed out to Sakariya at short fine leg inside the batting powerplay.

Kuldeep struck twice in his first over with the wickets of Baba Indrajith and Sunil Narine off successive deliveries before chipping in with two more in his last over.

Captain Shreyas Iyer, who made 42, was brilliantly caught at shin high by wicketkeeper Rishabh Pant and then Kuldeep outfoxed hard-hitting Andre Russell to get the West Indian stumped without scoring.

Nitish Rana made a fighting 57 off 34 balls before he became one of the three Mustafizur Rahman’s victim in the last over as Kolkata ended up at a disappointing score.

Umesh (3-24) provided Kolkata a perfect start when he had Prithvi Shaw caught off his own bowling off the first ball before removing David Warner (42) and Pant (2) in his return spell as Delhi slipped to 84-5 in the 12th over.

Axar Patel had 24 off 17 balls before getting run out while going for a needless second run in the 15th over, but Powell ensured Delhi didn’t slip up as he smashed three sixes and a boundary in his unbeaten knock.

“We started off really slow and lost a couple of wickets,” Shreyas said. “The total was pretty low on this wicket and obviously the way we played in the first half, there are no excuses for that. We need to go back and assess where we went wrong.”