Delhi Capitals cruise at Kotla with a easy win over RR

Already through to the playoffs Delhi Capitals first rode on veterans Ishant Sharma and Amit Mishras superb efforts with the bowl to restrict Rajasthan Royals to 115 for nine and then chased down the target in 161 overs with Rishabh Pant remaining unbeaten on a 38ball 53The win lifted Delhi to the second spot in the standings with 18 points from 14 games but to finish as a secondbest side the Capitals would need Mumbai Indians to lose against Kolkata Knight Riders on Sunday A win for Mumbai would automatically drop Delhi to the third spot as they have an inferior net runrate Rajasthan is out of the tournament finishing with just 11 points from 14 gamesChasing a modest target Delhi made a quick start through Shikhar Dhawan 16 and Prithvi Shaw 8 before Ish Sodhi 326 removed both the openers in consecutive balls to give himself a hattrick chanceSodhi first got rid of Dhawan in the second ball of the fourth over holed out by Riyan Parag and then Shaw played on the next deliverySkipper Shreyas Iyer 15 off 9 and Rishabh then added 33 runs off 25 balls for the third wicket before the former was holed out by Liam Livingstone off Shreyas Gopal While Delhi lost two more wickets in the form of Colin Ingram 12 and Sherfane Rutherford 11 Rishabh carried on his bat and finished off the chase by hitting Sodhi for a big six over longleg off and in the process also notched up his fiftyRishabhs unbeaten knock was studded with two fours and five hits over the fence Earlier Ishant 338 did the early damage before legspinner Mishra 317 came to the party to rock Rajasthans inningsYoung Parag 50 off 49 4x4s 2x6s was the lone bright spot for Rajasthan as he held on to one fort and notched up his maiden IPL fifty to take the visitors close to the 120run mark Rajasthan had a disastrous start to their innings after opting to bat as they were reduced to 30 for four at the end of the first six overs of powerplay with Ishant doing the bulk of the damageIshant struck in the second over removing Rajasthan skipper Ajinkya Rahane 2 and then came back an over later to clean up Livingstone 14 To make matters worse for the visitors inform Sanju Samson 5 fell victim to an unnecessary mix up with Mahipal Lomror in the next over Lomror 8 didnt help his cause either as he handed Ishant his third wicket of the day nicking one to Rishabh behind the stumpsParag and Gopal tried to stabilize the innings with a 27run fifthwicket stand before Mishra scalped two wickets in consecutive deliveries in the 12th over to disturb Rajasthans resistanceMishra first foxed Gopal 12 to be stumped by Rishabh and then induced a faint edge from new man Stuart Binny which again Rishabh obliged This gave Mishra a chance for registering a hattrickThe legspinner was well on course of scalping a hattrick but Trent Boult dropped a sitter at longoff to hand Krishnappa Gowtham lifeHowever Mishra got his man an over later as Gowatham gave a straight forward catch to Ishant at longoff and Rajasthan slumped to 65 for sevenParag opened up late and smacked Ishant for two fours to pick up 18 runs off the 17th over and then smashed Boult for two sixes in the final over before perishing in the last ball of the inningsCatch up on all the latest T20 news and updates here Also download the new midday Android and iOS apps to get latest updates