Delhi Capitals ease past LSG behind Mukesh's four-wicket haul
Delhi Capitals moved level with Gujarat Titans at the top of the Indian Premier League standings, as their bowlers set up a comfortable eight-wicket win over Lucknow Super Giants.
Mukesh Kumar managed career-best figures of 4-33 for Delhi as Lucknow lost their way midway through their innings at Ekana, stumbling to 159-6.
And though the chase was slow-going at times, unbeaten half-centuries from Abishek Porel (51) and KL Rahul (57) helped Delhi bring up that target with 13 balls to spare.
Looking to respond to Saturday's close-run defeat to the Titans, Capitals captain Axar Patel won the toss and put the hosts in to bat, though his bowlers were initially frustrated.
Aiden Markram and Mitchell Marsh put on an 87-run stand for the Super Giants' first wicket on what was always expected to be a low-scoring surface.
But Dushmantha Chameera had Markram (52) caught by Tristan Stubbs shortly after the South African reached his half-century, while Mitchell Starc continued his mastery of Nicholas Pooran (9), bowling him for the fifth time – from 14 balls – across their T20 meetings.
From there, it was the Mukesh show. In the 14th over, he caught and bowled Abdul Samad (2), but it was the wicket of Marsh – who was bowled with a tremendous yorker four balls later – that really had LSG on the ropes.
David Miller (14 off 15, not out) failed to accelerate the hosts' scoring rate, and Ayush Badoni (36) and Rishabh Pant (0) were both bowled by Mukesh when attempting to do so in the final over.
When the Capitals took up the bat, Lucknow had some early hope as Markram – having just been hammered for six – bowled the in-form Karun Nair (15) off the very next delivery, but Porel and Rahul put on a 69-run stand to calm the Delhi nerves.
And though Markram had Porel caught at deep midwicket in the 12th over, Delhi barely needed above a run a ball by that stage, and helped by Axar's quick 34 off 20, Rahul got the visitors over the line with a splendid six
Data debrief: Mukesh keeps LSG in check, more history for Rahul
Before Tuesday, Mukesh had never previously had a four-wicket haul in the IPL, with figures of 3-14 versus Gujarat last year his best performance in the competition.
Mukesh had failed to take multiple wickets in any of Delhi's first seven games of the 2025 edition, but he is now within touching distance of the Capitals' most prolific bowlers, Kuldeep Yadav (12 wickets this year) and Starc (11), with nine.
It was mainly thanks to his tremendous 14th over, and some miserly bowling from Chameera and Starc (both 1-25) that LSG were limited to their lowest total of the year.
But Delhi also had a performance to savour with the bat as Rahul brought up 5,000 IPL runs, surpassing David Warner's record (135 innings) as the fastest player to reach that figure, doing so in 130 innings.