Porel, Axar and Stubbs fire DC to 188

Axar Patel and Tristan Stubbs gave late impetus to a floundering Delhi Capitals innings on Wednesday night; they finished with 188 for 5 after being put into bat by Rajasthan Royals at the Arun Jaitley Stadium in IPL 2025. This was the first sub-200 score by a team batting first in the last nine T20 innings at this ground.

Axar injected momentum in the death with a takedown of Wanindu Hasaranga, hitting 34 off 14 in all. Stubbs, dropped on 12 off 8 by Riyan Parag off Hasaranga, batted through to also finish 34 not out off 18 balls as the last three overs went for 42 runs.

This included a 19-run final over off Sandeep Sharma, who until then had sensational figures of 3-0-14-0. Sandeep bowled four wides, and a no-ball in what proved to be a 11-ball over that ended with Maheesh Theekshana dropping a sitter at point off Stubbs.

The tone was set up top by Abishek Porel, who picked 23 off Tushar Deshpande's first over - the second of the innings - by Jake Fraser-McGurk and Karun Nair fell early. McGurk began by lofting Jofra Archer for consecutive boundaries in the first over, but holed out to mid-off trying to loft a hard-length delivery.

Nair, coming off his IPL best of 89 on debut, then survived three rocket deliveries from Archer. Two of those were bouncers that whizzed past his ear and had him mistime a pull that nearly carried to square leg. Then he was run out at the non-striker's end following a mix-up with Porel as he walked back for a duck.

KL Rahul was cautious to begin with, the slowness of the surface proving challenging to score, especially when deliveries were dug into the pitch on a length. At one stage he was on 17 off 18, but couldn't quite push on - eventually falling for a 32-ball 38 when he pulled Archer to deep midwicket.

This is when DC had Axar to thank as he immediately took down spin to inject momentum that Stubbs carried forward to give them a total to bowl at.