DC chase 194 to beat RR by five wickets and keep the IPL 2026 playoffs alive
Delhi Capitals chased down 194 at the Arun Jaitley Stadium with five wickets and four balls to spare on Sunday night, riding a Mitchell Starc four-wicket haul and a 100-plus opening stand to keep their IPL 2026 playoff hopes alive in a season that had felt finished a week ago.
Starc flips the night at 161 for 2
Rajasthan Royals were 161 for 2 inside 14.1 overs and projecting well past 220 when Starc returned for his third spell. He had Riyan Parag caught for a fifty, then trapped Donovan Ferreira the very next ball, and two balls later he had debutant Ravi Singh too. RR's middle order collapsed in the space of one over and what looked like a 220-plus night ended at 193 for 8.
Starc closed his spell with a fourth wicket, Dasun Shanaka for 10, and finished with 4 for 40. Dhruv Jurel had been the most fluent batter on view to that point, top-scoring with 53 off 40 and putting on 72 with Parag for the third wicket before Lungi Ngidi got him lbw in the final over of the innings.
Porel and Rahul lay the chase
Abhishek Porel and KL Rahul came out hitting from the first over. The pair put on 72 inside the powerplay without losing a wicket, and the chase never felt out of Delhi's hands while they were both at the crease. Porel's 51 off 31, his maiden half-century of the season, took DC past 100 before Brijesh Sharma got him caught.
Rahul kept going for 56 off 42, the kind of paced anchor knock that has been missing from a Delhi top order that has too often left finishers stranded. Shanaka eventually got him, and the wobble that followed pulled the equation back into the danger zone.
Seven off the last over, Ashutosh finishes it
Seven needed off the final over after Delhi had let the chase drift. Axar Patel held one end with the kind of calm he has built his death-overs game around, finishing unbeaten on 34 off 18. Ashutosh Sharma did the rest. A four over mid-off off the first ball, then a pulled six over deep square leg, and the equation was gone. He finished 18 not out off 5.
The win pushes DC to 12 points from 13 matches, level with Chennai Super Kings and Rajasthan, both still on 12 from 12. DC sit seventh on net run rate at -0.871, the worst of the three, so the playoff math now needs more than just one more win. It is the slimmest of windows, but a week ago it was a closed door.
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