Jaydev Unadkat starred for the Rajasthan Royals in his return for the men in pink in their second game of the 2021 edition of the Indian Premier League (IPL) as he took wickets of Shikhar Dhawan, Ajinkya Rahane and Prithvi Shaw to reduce Delhi Capitals to three down for 36 in the powerplay itself. After which, it was only the skipper Rishabh Pant, who played with some aggression and hit fifty to help the Capitals get to a respectable total of 147/8 in their 20 overs.

Delhi didn’t have a great start as they lost wickets in the 2nd, 4th and 6th overs of the innings. None of the batsmen from the top-order could understand the pace of the pitch as Unadkat used his off-pace and cutters to the fullest effect to see the back of the batsmen in blue.

After which, skipper Rishabh Pant took the centre stage and started to rebuild the innings with debutant Lalit Yadav. Both Pant and Yadav hit a few good shots and took Delhi’s scoring rate over 6. Pant brought up his fifty off just 31 balls and was looking ominous.

However, a direct hit from Riyan Parag meant an unfortunate end of Pant’s innings and it needed the likes of Chris Woakes, Tom Curran and Ravichandran Ashwin to take the score to safety and on a pitch where the odd ball was stopping and gripping in the surface given Delhi’s bowling attack was a decent one, especially from a position they were in at 36/3.

Unadkat was the pick of the bowlers with figures of 3/15, while Mustafizure Rahman chipped in with a couple of wickets as well.