IPL 2025: Delhi beats celebrated Chennai to reach table's top

Chennai: Delhi Capitals maintained their unbeaten run in the Indian Premier League (IPL) 2025 with a 25-run win over five-time champions Chennai Super Kings at the MA Chidambaram Stadium here on Saturday. DC are the new table toppers of the ongoing tournament by winning a game in Chepauk for the first time after 2010, IANS reported.

DC’s win was set up by KL Rahul slamming a superb 77 as an opener after Faf du Plessis was unfit to play and propelled them to post 183/6. In reply, CSK suffered yet another poor batting power play as DC was banging on with their plans.

The pitch was not conducive to hitting boundaries freely, which meant they could only make 158/5, with Vijay Shankar making 69, not out of 54 balls. For DC, Vipraj Nigam took 2-27, while bowlers, barring Mohit Sharma and Axar Patel, took a wicket each.

DC’s defence of 183 began on a bright note as Rachin Ravindra tried to flick off Mukesh Kumar, but the leading edge was caught by the bowler in his follow-through, and the batter was dismissed for three.

Ruturaj Gaikwad fell into Mitchell Starc’s short-ball trap as his short-arm jab went into the hands of a deep backward square leg, and he was out for five. It was Nigam’s time to strike as Devon Conway’s leading edge off a googly was caught by cover, and the powerplay ended at 46/3.

With the pitch slowing down, DC was successful in keeping Shankar and Shivam Dube on a tight leash. The ploy of stifling the run-flow worked well as Dube holed out to long-on off Nigam for 18 and was followed by Kuldeep Yadav using his googly to trap Ravindra Jadeja lbw for two.

Shankar dropped on 18 and 27, apart from surviving a run-out and DC not going for a plumb lbw appeal, broke CSK’s 28-ball boundary drought by pulling Mohit for four before swivelling and punching Kuldeep for a brace of boundaries.

Even though Shankar reached his fifty off 43 balls and MS Dhoni brought out some big hits after overcoming a slow start, especially doing that in front of his parents, wife, and daughter, to be not out on 30 off 26 balls, it wasn’t enough to prevent a second straight home loss for a struggling CSK in IPL 2025.

Brief scores:

Delhi Capitals 183/6 in 20 overs (KL Rahul 77, Abishek Porel 33; Khaleel Ahmed 2-25, Ravindra Jadeja 1-19) beat Chennai Super Kings 158/5 in 20 overs (Vijay Shankar 69 not out, MS Dhoni 30 not out; Vipraj Nigam 2-27, Mitchell Starc 1-27) by 25 runs