NEW DELHI: Sameer Rizvi has finally arrived on the big stage, two years after being identified by IPL scouts.On Saturday evening, on a Kotla pitch that sucked the life out of the match, he injected adrenaline with a commanding 51-ball 90 as Delhi Capitals cruised past the 163-run target set by Mumbai Indians with 11 balls and six wickets to spare to go to the top of the standings. The 22-year-old Rizwan has now played the lead role in two consecutive tricky chases following his impressive performance against LSG earlier.The afternoon started with the Delhi crowd going berserk after seeing Rohit Sharma taking guard. Capitals have been yearning for slower pitches since the last season to aid their spin trio of Kuldeep Yadav, Axar Patel and Vipraj Nigam. Rohit brought used all his experience to keep the scoreboard moving, with frequent boundaries, even as runscoring looked tough on the dry pitch. The crowd roared with each boundary that Rohit hit till he was caught at extra-cover off Axar for 35 off 26 in the 10th over. Scoring became excruciatingly tough after Rohit’s dismissal even as Suryakumar Yadav grafted a 36-ball 51. The Capitals pacers relied on cutters while pegging away at a back of a length.
MI’s 162/6 looked like a challenging score before Capitals opener Pathum Nissanka went hard at the top of the chase to set it up for Rizvi to eventually bat MI out of the game. MI skipper for the match Suryakumar Yadav, standing in for an unwell Hardik Pandya, was lost for answers during the counter-attack.The crowd remained flat for much of the match before Rizvi took over once Nissanka departed for 44 off 30 balls, with the scoreboard reading 73/3 in the 10th over. Rizvi, raised on the sluggish pitches of western UP, went on a rampage. In the next 6.3 overs, DC smashed 78 runs with David Miller’s only job feeding the strike to Rizvi.Rizvi, coming out to bat as an Impact Substitute, went about dismantling MI’s bowling with consummate ease. Rizvi brought shots that broke the rules of conventional batting. He knew the MI pacers would hit the hard lengths just like DC had done it. So, he cleared his front foot and went about slapping the ball through the off-side.
Leg-spinner Mayank Markande looked completely out of his depth as Rizvi negated the turn by skipping down the track and smacking him down the ground. Rizvi’s approach of using his feet against the spinners was in sharp contrast to the MI batters, who were largely rooted to the crease. Surya’s only response to the Capitals spinners was the sweep for singles.Rizvi has now cracked the code in these short tricky chases. Like he did in Lucknow in the previous match, he doesn’t get edgy at the top of his innings. The string of dot balls doesn’t perturb him. He waits to find his rhythm on these pitches. He respects the established international bowlers, like he did against Jasprit Bumrah and Mitchell Santner. Just like he pounced on Shahbaz Nadeem’s innocuous left-arm spin against Lucknow Super Giants, he devoured Markande on Saturday evening.The knock clearly left the MI camp shaken. Surya’s captaincy looked unimpressive. Santner didn’t complete his quota of overs and Bumrah came back in the attack a bit late.
