Match 29 brings us a clash between the top of the table and undefeated Delhi Capitals side and a struggling Mumbai Indians team at the Arun Jaitley Stadium, Delhi, on 13th April.
Indian Premier League 2025 | Match 29: Delhi Capitals vs Mumbai Indians| 19:30 IST, April 13th
The Delhi Capitals are currently on a roll and sit in second place behind the Gujarat Titans on net-run-rate. But what’s exclusive to them is that they are the only unbeaten side left in the tournament.
Their batters clicking, their bowlers choking opposition batters, it’s all plane sailing at the moment for the Delhi Capitals. Having won their first three encounters, DC were tasked with overcoming an in-form Royal Challengers Bengaluru side away from home and Axar Patel’s men did exactly that with aplomb.
After deciding to bowl first, following Phil Salt’s explosive 37 runs off 16 balls innings, the DC spinners pulled back things in the powerplay and throughout the middle-overs with both Vipraj Nigam and Kuldeep Yadav tying knots around the RCB batters – as both leggies finished the night with two wickets apiece.
Chasing a modest total of 164, the DC top-order collapsed under superb new-ball bowling from Bhuvneshwar Kumar and Yash Dayal. However, KL Rahul’s quality innings of 93* runs off 53 balls and Tristan Stubbs’ matured innings of 38* from 23 balls helped Axar’s men secure a six wicket victory with 13 balls to spare.
The Mumbai Indians, on the other hand, are coming into this game on the back of their second 12-run defeat in succession. Having lost their fourth game away to the Lucknow Super Giants by 12 runs, Hardik Pandya’s MI lost at home against RCB again by 12 runs.
After asking Rajat Patidar to bat first, the first dismissal of Phil Salt was only a false dawn as the likes of Virat Kohli, Devdutt Padikkal, Patidar and Jitesh Sharma took the Mumbai bowlers to the cleaners enroute to a massive 221 total. Jasprit Bumrah – who played for the first time since his injury back in January – was MI’s most economical bowler – conceding only 29 runs in four overs – despite not picking up any wickets.
Chasing a huge total like 222, both MI openers perished cheaply before Will Jacks (22 runs off 18 balls) and Suryakumar Yadav (28 runs off 26 runs) stabilised the innings – albeit at a much slower rate. That resulted in the likes of Tilak Varma and Hardik Pandya having to do a lot with not many balls left. Thus, despite Varma’s 56 runs off 29 balls and Pandya’s explosive innings of 42 runs in just 15 balls, Mumbai fell short of the target by 12 runs.
Looking ahead to Match 29 at the Arun Jaitley Stadium, the Delhi Capitals are flying high on confidence with most of their players contributing, although they’d like to see a lot more from opener Jake Fraser-McGurk. Similarly, MI need both Rohit Sharma and Ryan Rickelton to start producing results with the tournament moving into the business end.
On paper, Mumbai have everything they need to start winning, however, the pieces need to start gelling soon. Too many times they’ve ended up on the wrong side of things due to one poor performance from one of their stars at crucial junctures.
Although everything points towards DC continuing their great run, this being DC’s first game at the Arun Jaitley Stadium, brings the Mumbai Indians into the equation. It’s time MI start showing up, hence, I’ll side with the Mumbai Indians on this one.
Fantasy XI: KL Rahul (vc), Abishek Porel, Ryan Rickelton (c), Rohit Sharma, Suryakumar Yadav, Tilak Varma, Faf Du Plessis, Hardik Pandya, Kuldeep Yadav, Jasprit Bumrah, Trent Boult
Venue: Arun Jaitley Stadium, Delhi
Winner’s Prediction: Mumbai Indians
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