SHARJAH: Delhi Capitals (DC) registered their third win in the 13th IPL and moved into the top position in points table as they beat Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) by 18 runs in a high scoring match at the Sharjah International Cricket Stadium.
Chasing 229 to win, the two-time champion KKR fought well and required 26 from the final over, but finally scored 210 losing 8 wickets in allotted overs. Nitish Rana made 58 off 35 balls with 4 sixes while Eoin Morgan and Rahul Tripathi contributed 44 and 36 respectively. Anrich Nortje claimed 3 wickets for 33 while Harsha Patel took 2 wickets for 34.
Earlier, Delhi Capitals made the most of the short boundaries on offer to score a mammoth 228/4.
Captain Shreyas Iyer led the way with an unbeaten 38-ball 88, while DC's top three added more than 50 runs for each wicket.
DC were on the charge from the first ball with openers Shikhar Dhawan (26) and Prithvi Shaw (66) ensuring that they cross 50 in the first five overs. Dhawan fell in the sixth over to Varun Chakravarthy, but Shreyas came in and kept the momentum going.
Iyer brought up DC's 100 with an emphatic six over deep square-leg in the 11th over before Shaw fell in the 13th to Kamlesh Nagarkoti. It led to two relatively quiet overs before Iyer and Rishabh Pant (38) sent the ball to all parts of the ground in the death overs.
Their charge to 250 was stopped by Andre Russell. The big West Indies all-rounder dismissed Pant in the 18th and then got Marcus Stoinis (1) off the first ball of the 20th. He then gave away just seven runs in the over to keep DC down to 228. IANS