Delhi Capitals (DC) continued their stellar run in Indian Premier League (IPL) 2020 with another crucial win over MS Dhoni-led Chennai Super Kings (CSK) at the Sharjah Stadium in Sharjah on Saturday. Delhi Capitals defeated CSK by five wickets with the help of an unbeaten century from their star batsman Shikhar Dhawan, who looked in magnificent touch and took the opposition bowlers to the cleaners.
Batting first, Chennai Super Kings rode on a brilliant 58 off 47 balls from Faf du Plessis and Ambati Rayudu’s 45 off 25 balls to post a challenging total of 179 runs on the board in 20 overs. In reply, Delhi Capitals got off to a poor start as they lost opener Prithvi Shaw on a duck before Ajinkya Rahane fell for 8 off 10 balls to leave them reeling on 2/26 inside 5 overs.
However, Dhawan held his ground on one end and almost single-handedly propelled his team over the line in the tricky chase which went down to the final over. Axar Patel slammed 21 runs off 5 balls and his fiery cameo helped DC get the 17 runs required off the final 20 over which was bowled by Ravindra Jadeja as Dwayne Beavo had left the field and was unfit to make a comeback.
While his unbeaten 101 sealed another crucial 2 points for Delhi Capitals, Dhawan also created a new IPL record with his maiden century in the tournament history. Dhawan now has the most runs by an opener in IPL history as he surpassed the legendary Chris Gayle on the elite list. Dhawan now has 4481 runs as an opener in IPL – most by any opening batsman.
Overall, the left-hander has 4938 runs in 168 matches in the Indian Premier League at an average of over 34. He has one century and 39 half-centuries to his name in the league. It took Dhawan as many as 264 innings to score his maiden century in T20 cricket which is the second-most amount of innings taken by a batsman to reach his first T20 hundred.
