Two matches subbed in as the Impact Player and twice Sameer Rizvi has affected the result of the match in his team Delhi Capitals’ favour. After taking DC home against Lucknow Super Giants with an unbeaten 70, Rizvi struck a 51-ball 90 at the Arun Jaitley Stadium to help his team register a six-wicket win over the mighty Mumbai Indians.Rizvi shared a partnership of 78 runs with David Miller. Such was the dominance of Rizvi that Miller contributed only 11 runs to the partnership. In fact, the match at the Feroze Shah Kotla pitch followed a similar script to that of the match against Lucknow. Chasing a meagre total of 141, Delhi were reduced to 26/4 and then went onto win the match by six wickets as Rizvi and Tristan Stubbs built a crucial partnership. On Saturday, Delhi once again lost two early wickets with only seven runs on the board when Rizvi came in to bat.KL Rahul once again failed to give the team a start as he feathered a catch down the leg side to wicketkeeper Ryan Rickelton in the very first over bowled by Deepak Chahar. Nitish Rana was then run out by Jasprit Bumrah in the next over as he tried to take a suicidal run to open his account.Rizvi and Pathum Nissanka then put together 66 runs for the third wicket, with the latter the more aggressive between the two. The Sri Lankan looked to have the measure of the MI bowlers and was severe on loose deliveries. He took 16 runs off Shardul Thakur’s first over to resurrect the run chase. When Nissanka was dismissed, caught at Mayank Markande who ran from fine leg to complete the catch, trying to pull a short delivery from Mitchell Santner, Delhi still needed another 90 runs in 61 deliveries. Rizvi then pressed on the counter and unleashed a flurry of strokes to ease the anxieties in the Delhi dugout. Having scored 25 runs off 24 balls, the 22-year-old first targeted Corbin Bosch to bring down the asking run rate that had crept up to nine runs an hour. After a boundary towards mid-off, Rizvi then ramped the South African for a boundary over the wicketkeeper. Then two sumptuous sixes — first over deep point and then towards the deep square boundary — deflated the Mumbai bowling line-up. The only bowler that was respected was Bumrah, who went wicketless in his quota of four overs, conceding only 21 runs.Markande, Thakur and Chahar all suffered at the hands of Rizvi as Miller kept rotating the strike at the other end. Rizvi was dismissed trying to finish the match early and possibly complete his century. Rizvi holed out towards the long off fence. Miller then polished off the runs to ensure Delhi’s back-to-back wins and a first at home.Earlier, Delhi Capitals’ bowlers, led by their skipper Axar Patel, restricted the star Mumbai batters to a below average score of 162 runs. Mukesh Kumar first dismissed Rickelton and Tilak Verma in the same over to stun the visitors in the powerplay. Then they stunted any hopes of a power surge in the middle of the innings to stall the visitors.Twice the Mumbai batters had to regroup in order to reach a respectable total. After having lost two inside the powerplay overs, Rohit Sharma and stand-in skipper Suryakumar Yadav had to play within themselves to resurrect the innings. The two put on 53 runs for the third wicket but just when they wanted to press on the accelerator another wicket fell.Rohit, who was batting on 35, was caught by Rana in the covers off the bowling of Patel. Despite Surya’s half century, Mumbai never looked like scoring a competitive total as the bowling variations from Lungi Ngidi and T Natarajan made it very hard to target the short square boundaries.


