Shikhar Dhawan finally scored bad runs in this order and Delhi Capitol defeated Kolkata Knight Riders by 7 wickets in IPL 2019 in Kolkata.
Chasing 179 runs for the win, Dhawan (97 *) and Pant (46) shared a crucial partnership of 105 for the third wicket, because the capitals defeated the Knight Riders in the second defeat in a row.
Dhawan and opening partner Prithvi Shaw came out in the second innings with a bang, and they started well, but later Dinesh Karthik was bowled out on the delivery of Precious Krishna.
Captain Shreyas Iyer was the next person to go after Andre Russell's chasing a ball, who was going down the leg side, but was giving easy catch to Karthik only.
Still Dhawan was in an ominous form and regularly found the boundary after the powerplay was over. KKR, who have struggled to take wickets in this season, were once again found working hard in the middle overs.
But Pant and Dhawan scored quick runs and looked comfortable with the equation. By the time Pant was out after giving easy catch to Kuldeep Yadav on Long On, the match was all out.
It may be that the late DC's history of captains has worried some of his fans, but Dhawan and Colin Ingram have taken the team home without much fuss, after finishing the match with six.
Earlier, KKR could only score 178/7 in the first innings, when Aiyar won the toss and the host team first played for batting.
Due to a virus in the camp, KKR was forced to make three changes: Sunil Narine and Chris Lynn who got out of Denly and Carlos Brathwaite, while Harry Gurney locked out to Lockie Ferguson.
Denny's reputation as a hard-hitting opener in the format is yet to be known that he started his IPL career with Golden Duck, after which Ishant Sharma cleared his stumps.
It brought Robin Uthappa out, who saw Shubman Gill rebuilding from the early loss with the surprising option.
Both Lynn and Narayana's compatriots were more subdued than slap-dash pair, yet they did well to maintain the scoreboard with traditional cricket shots.
His score of 63 came to an end when Uthappa was caught by Pant on the ball of Kagiso Rabada and saw that the scoring rate had dropped sharply.
Nitish Rana was dismissed cheaply but when Andre Russell came, once again, the pace of the home team increased.
His 21 balls included 4 sixes and three fours in 45 innings, but despite adding some valuable runs at the end of PKU Chawla, KKR could not get close to 200 runs.
