Delhi Capitals have spent much of this IPL season trying to keep up with the scoreboard, and Tristan Stubbs said it has made the batting look worse than it has sometimes been. The Capitals, sixth in the standings with three wins in six matches, host Punjab Kings on Saturday at the Arun Jaitley Stadium, where they will try to slow a six-match unbeaten streak that includes five wins and one no result.
Stubbs, speaking on the eve of the day match, said the team’s chase-heavy schedule has magnified the misses. “It has seemed worse because we have been chasing every game,” he said. “The other day we lost three wickets in an over and we didn’t bat very well. We still made 190 something.”
That line cuts to the problem. Delhi have not yet chased down a target above 200 this season, and they have fallen short in eight of 10 attempts since 2024 when asked to chase 200-plus. Their latest effort, though, offered a reminder of what the side can do when it stays in the contest: a penultimate-ball win over Royal Challengers Bengaluru in Bengaluru, their only victory in the past two weeks.
At home, the picture has been mixed. Delhi have played two matches at the Arun Jaitley Stadium so far, beating Mumbai Indians by six wickets and losing to Gujarat Titans by one run. They now have four of their next five games at home over the next two weeks, with one trip away to Rajasthan Royals, and the schedule gives them room to recover if they can settle their batting order.
The unsettled No. 3 spot has been one reason the top order has not quite clicked. Nitish Rana, Sameer Rizvi and Karun Nair have all been tried there, and the three of them have produced 88 runs at an average of 14.66. Rana was dropped for poor returns before he scored 57 against Sunrisers Hyderabad in the previous match. Rizvi, meanwhile, had two straight Player of the Match awards before his last four scores of 0, 6, 2 and 41. Pathum Nissanka, who has had three scores of 40 or more at the top, has also had innings of 1, 1 and 8, another sign of how uneven the batting has been.
“Yes, we haven’t had the perfect innings, but on a bad day we have won three out of six,” Stubbs said. “Even when we have lost, we have still scored 190.” That is the comfort Delhi keep reaching for. The concern is that it has not yet translated into successful chases against the bigger targets, and each near miss has added to the sense that the line between a fight and a collapse is thin.
The bowling group has had its own strain. In Mitchell Starc’s absence, Lungi Ngidi and Mukesh Kumar have carried the seam-bowling responsibility, while Kuldeep Yadav and Axar Patel have combined for 11 wickets but conceded 341 runs in 38 overs at nearly nine an over. Against Sunrisers Hyderabad’s 242, Kuldeep and Axar bowled two overs each while Rana completed his quota, a snapshot of how Delhi have had to patch together overs and roles as the matches have come thick and fast.
Starc is set to join next week, which should give Delhi a lift just as the home run begins to shape the rest of their season. For now, though, they remain a side with enough batting to hang around and enough loose ends to get punished, and Saturday’s game against Punjab Kings asks the same question their recent results have: can they turn competitive totals into control before the schedule tightens again?
