IPL 2021: Records galore as Shaw and Dhawan show allows Delhi to tame Chennai

The 2021 Indian Premier League is off to a great start. Delhi Capitals has never won the title but finished as the runner-up last season. Meanwhile, Chennai Super Kings is a three-time champion but finished at the seventh spot in 2020, failing to qualify for the playoffs for the first time.

In what turned out to be a one-sided yet entertaining encounter, Delhi Capitals tamed former champion Chennai Super Kings by seven wickets in Match 2 of the Indian Premier League 2021 at the Wankhede Stadium in Mumbai on Saturday. While Suresh Raina's 54  helped CSK post 188/7, Prithvi Shaw (72) and Shikhar Dhawan (85) stole the game away. Meanwhile, we take a look at the records scripted.

Faf du Plessis registers an unwanted first
Du Plessis was dismissed for an unwanted duck tonight after being trapped leg-before by pacer Avesh Khan. As a result, it was the first time in his IPL career that he had been dismissed similarly, for the first time in his 78 innings.

Ravichandran Ashwin scripts an unwanted too
Ashwin was highly expensive, giving away 47 runs. As a result, it was his joint second-most costly spell in the IPL (vs Kolkata Knight Riders, 2019) after 53 against Punjab Kings in 2018.

Raina scripts a first
Raina was the man to watch out as he slammed an impressive 54. Consequently, this was the first time he had scored 50-plus in CSK's opening game of the season.

MS Dhoni scripts an unwanted in a long time
Dhoni started IPL 2021 on a shaky note, getting dismissed for an unlucky duck. Meanwhile, it was his first duck in the Twenty20s since IPL 2015.

DC registers big ones
DC manage to score 70/0 during the powerplay. As a result, it was its highest score at the phase against CSK to date, going past its previous best of 64/0 in 2008. Also, it was the third-highest successful chase against CSK after 206 by PK in 2014 and 191 by Kolkata Knight Riders in 2012.

Shaw-Dhawan script numerous ones
The 100-plus opening stand between Shaw and Dhawan was DC's first since 2016 when Quinton de Kock & Rishabh Pant had scored 115 against Gujarat Lions. It was also the first time since 2015 that both DC openers scored 50-plus in the same innings after Mayank Agarwal and Shreyas Iyer scored 52* and 54, respectively, against Punjab Kings. Their stand of 138 was also the second-best against CSK after Ajinkya Rahan-Shane Watson's 144 in 2015.

Dhawan unstoppable against CSK
Dhawan managed to play a gem of an innings of 85. Meanwhile, he is the highest run-scorer against CSK, scoring more than 900 runs, going past Virat Kohli (901). Also, he has become the third-highest run-scorer in the IPL (5,282), going past David Warner (5,254) and is behind Raina (5,422) and Kohli (5,911).

Match summary
Electing to bowl, DC bowlers did an excellent job to restrict CSK to 188/7, thanks to Chris Woakes and Avesh Khan, despite Raina's impressive 54. However, in reply, Shaw and Dhawan just bamboozled past the CSK bowling attack, thus winning by seven wickets.
Brief scores: CSK 188/7 (Moeen- 36,Raina- 54, Curran- 34; Woakes 2/18, Avesh- 2/23) lost to DC 190/3 in 18.4 overs (Shaw- 72, Dhawan- 85; Thakur- 2/53) by seven wickets.