Dhawan, Rahane fifties seal second place for Capitals; RCB make playoffs too
Anrich Nortje, who won the Player-of-the-Match award, took three wickets for the Capitals
Anrich Nortje, who won the Player-of-the-Match award, took three wickets for the Capitals
Scorer: Chandan Duorah | Commentator: Varun Shetty
9:44pm And that is it from tonight! A frenzied last couple of days has come down to a simple equation before the final league match of the season: A win takes SRH through, a loss for them takes KKR through. We'll see you tomorrow. Good night!
Anrich Nortje: I think, I say it time and time again, just the basics. We just had a couple of guys doing the basics right. It wasn't one guy doing something special. Small things started feeling a little better again, the rhythm. Spoke to KG and he said the same as well. We were speaking about the bigger boundaries, maybe try and hit them there. At the start it's difficult. So just try and use the conditions. There was a little bit of dew at the end of our bowling innings, so just try and use the conditions. Yorker would have been the go-to options, but I just thought let's just try and change it up. Especially for the new guys, it's difficult picking length coming in.
Anrich Nortje is the Man of the Match.
Shreyas Iyer: Chuffed with the performance. We knew it was a do or die and we just focused on the win, not NRR. The teams who won in the latter half completely changed the scenario. It's a really competitive tournament for sure. I feel that the bowlers were really up with their plans and knew what they had to execute. We had a few sessions back in the hotel and the strengths and weaknesses of the opposition and it worked out today. Mumbai are one of the best teams in the tournament. We need to keep things simple, that's what we discussed in the meetings. Stick to the basics. The more you keep things simple, the easier it gets.
Ajinkya Rahane: Ricky told me when we came here that I would bat No. 3. It's a good number to bat on. Luckily we restricted them to 152. In the end it was all about having a partnership with Shikhar and it worked out. It was all about playing with intent and getting that partnership going. We were not thinking too much about any target, just batting with intent. It was disappointing to get out. I wanted to finish the team. We know how funny this game is. But in the end good to win this game and qualify.
Virat Kohli: It's a mixed bag. you come to games to try and get a result your way. Through probably the 11th over, the 17.3 mark was informed by the management. Even if the game was drifting away, we controlled the middle overs well enough. I think we've played good enough cricket in this tournament to qualify. We have two games to the final now. We can be more brave in the back end, probably be better in the powerplay (with the ball) which has been our strength. You take what you can with these games.
9:22pm Delhi will breathe easy. It's been a hard path into this final league game for them, four losses in a row. But they did the job with the ball and gave themselves a fairly comfortable target to chase. Not a lot of risks needed, and a chase tailor-made for someone like Rahane, who kept them ticking as Dhawan reverted to his rollicking form after coming into this with two consecutive ducks. The first qualifier fixture is confirmed: Mumbai Indians v Delhi Capitals in Dubai. This is the second consecutive season that Delhi are through to the playoffs. RCB will play one of KKR and SRH in the Eliminator at this venue.
Shashwat: "Poor chahal...being blamed for being short...cruel game is cricket!!"
Delhi Capitals' captain says his team can deal with the challenge of Mumbai Indians as they are a "fearless and amazing bunch of boys"
He says qualification to the playoffs could finally free his players up
Anrich Nortje, who won the Player-of-the-Match award, took three wickets for the Capitals
Also, why didn't the Capitals try to knock the Royal Challengers out?
ESPNcricinfo's updates from the 55th game of IPL 2020