The Arun Jaitley Stadium was set alight tonight by Nitish Rana, who, despite hobbling with a calf injury, stood tall and delivered a world-class innings for his side. His brilliance carried West Delhi Lions into Qualifier 2, where they will lock horns with East Delhi Riders tomorrow. The stakes couldn’t be higher — the winner of that clash will go on to meet Central Delhi Kings in the grand finale on Sunday.
For now, this is Pritam Dey signing off on behalf of my co-commentator Saptak Sanyal who, along with scorer/analyst Paras Yadav brought all the actions of this clash. Stay tuned for more cricketing action from around the world. BYE BYE👋
Nitish Rana (Player of the Match and West Delhi Lions Captain):"No sir my leg is not well. I think I need a bit of icing in the night. I have had this calf injury earlier.
It was important to keep the belief. I tried to do things which are controllable. It is said that a batter need one innings to get back to the form and hope this is the innings for me. Yes when the things were heated up, I needed to control myself. When I was younger, I made a lot of mistakes in this situations. I did well and things went perfect.
I will play tomorrow. Any how! If it is important for me to play I will play the game."
Player of the Match: Nitish Rana
Tejaswi Dahiya (South Delhi Superstarz Captain): "Of course ma'am. It was a hard-fought game. But we can't do anything. Nitish bhaiya batted brilliantly and credit goes to him.
Well, at that stage, I backed my instinct and wanted to bowl the pacers because we needed wickets. I think we started really well with the new ball. Sumit got us two wickets but our bowlers failed to execute their plans in the middle overs.
I think full credit goes to Nitish bhaiya. He batted brilliantly tonight."
Highest Individual Score in DPL:
165 - Ayush Badoni (South Delhi Superstarz) vs North Delhi Strikers, Delhi, 2024
134* - Nitish Rana (West Delhi Lions) vs South Delhi Superstarz, Delhi, 2025, Tonight*
42 balls - Nitish Rana vs South Delhi, 2025, Tonight*
49 balls - Yash Dhull vs North Delhi, 2025
11:48 PM IST and Local Time | West Delhi Lions have qualified for the second qualifier and they will come again tomorrow to face the East Delhi Riders in the match. South Delhi Superstarz got completely outplayed and guess the name of the architect? It is the West Delhi skipper. NITISH RANA!!!
Earlier in the match, Nitish won the toss and sent the Superstarz to bat first. Superstarz were off to a good start as they added 56 runs in the powerplay. Anmol Sharma was leading the batting then. Ankur Kaushik started to open up after the powerplay but Hrithik Shokeen took his wicket. Soon after, Kunwar Bidhuri was also dismissed by Shivank Vashisht. Anmol Sharma registered a fifty beside his name and scored 55 off 39 balls hitting 7 fours and 2 maximums.
Tejaswi Dahiya and Sumit Mathur were in the middle after that. Mathur was playing his shots but Dahiya took his time. But later, Dahiya also chipped in and hit his shots. They added 108 runs off the 55 balls before Tejaswi got out for 60. Tejaswi top scored for his side and scored 60 off 33 balls. Sumit Mathur remained unbeaten on 48 off 26 balls with 5 fours and 2 maximums.
Hrithik Shokeen took two wickets for the Lions. Shubham Dubey, Shivank Vashisht and Anirudh Chowdhary took a wicket each.
When the Lions came to bat, they got two early boundaries but Ankit Kumar found Digvesh Rathi off Beniwal on 4. Ayush Doseja had a brief struggle in the middle and got out for 5 facing 9 balls. Then Nitish Rana joined Krish Yadav. Nitish was struggling with his right leg since the start of the match and so it was mandatory for him to get regular boundaries to keep his team in the hunt. He did his job perfectly.
Rana hit the pacers a bit in the early stage of his innings and when Digvesh Rathi joined the bowling attack, he hit him for a hat-trick of sixes and made it a 22 run over. Then he didn't look back. It was raining sixes off his bat. Then he hit Himanshu Chauhan and then eventually went on to target every single bowler of the South Delhi Superstarz. Krish Yadav also hit 3 maximums but got out on 31.
Nitish Rana was batting on 99 and then he made the only fault of his innings. He chipped it to long-off but luck favoured him as it was a no-ball for the presence of one extra fielder outside the ring. Rana completed his hundred and finished unbeaten with 134 off 55. He hit 8 boundaries and 15 towering maximums to get there. That was some innings from him! Mayank Gusain supported him and they took their team home together.
Sumit Beniwal took a couple of wickets for the Superstarz and Aman Bharti got one scalp.