The venue was Delhi. The format was T20. But at the start of Monday’s fixture at the Arun Jaitley Stadium in the IPL, Bhuvneshwar Kumar and Josh Hazlewood were so irresistible with the new ball that the proceedings resembled a Test match unfolding on a green deck in Dunedin.
If Bhuvneshwar teased Delhi Capitals’ batters with swing from a good length, Hazlewood tormented the opposition with the short delivery. The deadly combination broke the back of the host inside the PowerPlay, and made victory for Royal Challengers Bengaluru a matter of formality.
Both pacers scalped three wickets each in their opening spells as Capitals were incredulously reduced to eight for six in 3.5 overs, with the scores of the top six reading 0, 1, 1, 0, 5, 0. The record of the lowest total in IPL history — 49 by RCB against Kolkata Knight Riders in 2017 — was in danger for a while, but Abishek Porel and David Miller put together 35 for the seventh wicket to avert that ignominy.
Eventually, Hazlewood finished with figures of 3.3-0-12-4 as DC folded up for 75. The defending champion took just 6.3 overs to clinch a nine-wicket win, leaving Axar Patel and Co. with a lot of soul-searching to do in the coming days.
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Heightening the sense of disbelief about the evening was the fact that 529 runs had been scored for the loss of just six wickets across two innings on an adjacent pitch just 48 hours ago.
Bhuvneshwar sparked the collapse. With debutant Sahil Parakh on strike in the opening over, the 36-year-old conjured up an inswinging yorker to uproot middle stump. He would also account for Tristan Stubbs and Axar in the third over.
From the other end, Hazlewood was just as spellbinding. Off his first two balls, he dismissed K.L. Rahul and Sameer Rizvi. Rahul was hurried by a bouncer, miscuing a pull to wicketkeeper Jitesh Sharma. Rizvi was enticed into a loose drive to a ball wide of off-stump.
The others crumbled predictably like a pack of cards, with Hazlewood fittingly ending the Capitals’ misery by cleaning up Porel with a yorker.
Published on Apr 27, 2026