It was a tale of two extremes in three days for Delhi Capitals. They scored 264 runs against Punjab Kings on Saturday and still lost the match. The remnants of that loss were felt on Monday when Delhi were blown out of the water by Royal Challengers Bengaluru, who dismissed the home team for just 75 runs.
Josh Hazlewood and Bhuvneshwar Kumar produced some amazing spells in the over with 3 overs to reduce the team to 13 for 6 and no team in the world can come back from that in the Indian Premier League these days. For people who watched the game, they already know. In case not, I urge you to read Akshay Ramesh’s match report where he eloquently explained how good Hazlewood and Bhuvi were on Monday.
RCB vs DC: HIGHLIGHTS | SCORECARD
So here, in our IPL Play of the Day, we discuss how the hangover from Saturday’s game against Punjab Kings dictated Delhi Capitals’ psychology against RCB on Monday.
Delhi Capitals were so bad on Monday that they could do nothing but laugh at their own fate. Speaking to the broadcaster immediately after the match, Axar Patel admitted that he had no idea what had gone wrong with his team halfway through the Indian Premier League.
“I don’t even know what happened. In cricket you have to be alert. We have to forget these losses and move on,” Axar Patel said after the match.
IPL: HAZLEWOOD, BHUVI STRIKE vs DC
To elaborate on what prompted the comment, Delhi Capitals failed to catch a break against the defending champions.
Desperate to get back on the winning track, the hosts made three changes to their team. But thunder struck in the very first match when Bhuvneshwar Kumar’s blistering inswinger dismantled debutant Sahil Parakh’s stumps with the second ball.
With a grip in the air, Bhuvneshwar licked his lips and completed a sensational first over, beating the outside edge several times.
The second over was even more threatening. Hazlewood started with a sharp short ball to KL Rahul who had a ridiculous 152* from the previous game. Rahul was caught off guard and ended up picking the ball and a simple catch was completed by Jitesh Sharma behind the stumps.
And from then on it was just one wicket after another until DC were reduced to 13 runs for the loss of 6 wickets, the worst over in IPL history.
DC vs RCB: HANGOVER OF 264 vs PUNJAB
Not one of the DC batsmen thought of erasing the spell. They poked, slashed and eventually lost wickets one by one.
It was probably brave of the captain himself to come to the post-match press conference and face the press. Axar took the questions on the chin and explained how the trauma of the previous game forced them to play a certain way.
For Axar, when the team saw the pitch, they went up in unison: this is the same pitch from Saturday.
As that scar resurfaced, the team came up with the only possible solution: If we didn’t win by scoring 264, we’d simply score more runs today.
But that thought process didn’t stick as two absolutely world-class bowlers took advantage of the slight wind in the stadium to extract all the swing available. And once the swing was available, there are very few players in the world better than Bhuvneshwar Kumar and Josh Hazlewood.
Hazlewood and Bhuvneshwar went to work and destroyed Delhi to the point of no return.
“There was very little time between games. I think the team thought that if we are not able to defend 264, we have to score more. It was also a bit unlucky that we lost 5 wickets in 15-16 balls. I honestly think we just have to forget about it,” said Axar Patel.
Axar delved deep into the team’s psyche at the press conference, explaining how the team faltered on Monday.
“I seriously think it was the same wicket as the 264. I think in the back of their minds the batsmen thought they would get a similar bounce. But today was windy, Saturday’s game was a day game and today was a night game, so I think the pacers moved a lot more,” Axar Patel said when asked by India Today at the post-match press conference.
“At the same time, Bhuvneshwar Kumar and Josh Hazlewood are world-class bowlers and were able to bowl long distances where they found the swing. Our batsmen stayed with the pace of the last game and thought the ball would hit the bat well. Once we lost the first two wickets, the others got a rude shock. But we should have handled it professionally.
DESPERATION IS SINKING
And there the match was truly lost. In the lingering shadow of Saturday night. Delhi went into Monday still carrying the weight of 264 and the disbelief of losing the game. Before they realized it was another game on another night, the damage was already done. The hangover arrived and drowned them completely.
Delhi weren’t just fighting Hazlewood and Bhuvneshwar, they were fighting the ghosts of Saturday’s defeat against the Punjab Kings. The memory of scoring 264 and still ending up on the losing side forced them into a desperate mindset, with survival replaced by urgency and patience replaced by panic.
They came in wanting to score more, they didn’t understand that it was a completely different challenge. They never really adjusted and the game was already over.
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Issued by:
Kingshuk Kusari
Published on:
28 Apr 2026 05:02 IST
