When Delhi Capitals and Mumbai Indians faced off in Delhi on April 13, the two teams had endured a contrasting run. MI, living up to their reputation of slow-starters, had a solitary win in five games, while DC were on a roll with four straight wins. Karun Nair threatened to take it further away from the five-time winners then, before Karn Sharma and Mitchell Santner’s timely intervention flipped the script. Santner went even better on a day when the stakes were much higher, but the definitive passage had already come before he had sent down a ball.
MI’s run of six straight wins was halted by Gujarat Titans at the very venue two weeks ago, when they had them stumble from 97/2 in the 11th over to 155/8 after 20. The hosts seemed to get around that mark at best on Wednesday, having been severely restricted by spin to get to 132/5 by the end of 18th; the seven preceding overs had yielded 42. However, Suryakumar Yadav and Naman Dhir took Mukesh Kumar and Dushmantha Chameera to the cleaners, and in the blink of an eye, MI finished with at least 15 above par, as Suryakumar would attest later.
It was the fourth straight game that the DC quicks were far from impactful, including a 10-wicket drubbing against GT at home in their previous outing. They were the most expensive bowling unit in IPL 2024, conceding at 9.95 runs per over, a number that went up further for quicks at 10.69. Despite Mitchell Starc’s acquisition, it hasn’t changed much in 2025. They have sent down the fewest overs of seam, and have got the least wickets among all the teams, less than half of their opponents on Wednesday. Their economy rate is exceeded by three other sides: RR, who were knocked out of the playoffs race quite early, while LSG and KKR only managed to hang in for longer courtesy of their batters and spin-twins respectively.