Delhi Capitals skipper Shreyas Iyer is in pain after hurting his left shoulder and a complete picture will only emerge after his scan reports arrive, said stand-in captain Shikhar Dhawan after their team beat Rajasthan Royals by 13 runs in an IPL game in Dubai on October 14.
Iyer hurt his left shoulder while trying to effect a diving stop during RR innings and had to leave the field due to severe pain.
“He (Iyer) is in pain but good thing is he is able to move his shoulder. I haven’t spoken to him at length. We’ll get proper report tomorrow,” said stand-in captain Dhawan, who really led well during the end stages.
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“One moment it was quite even and to pick it back from there was a team effort. It was important we stay positive as a team. I knew their batting isn’t deep and if we got their top-order we can get them,” the seasoned India international said.
Dhawan was all praise for his pacers, including Purple Cap winner Kagiso Rabada (18 wickets) and the fastest bowler in world cricket Anrich Nortje.
“Every time, we want them to deliver they’re delivering,” Dhawan said.
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He also praised debutant Tushar Deshpande.
“He showed courage. The line and length he bowled was amazing. We have to keep the momentum. It’s a long tournament. We will keep the process going,” Dhawan said.
Losing captain Steve Smith pointed out the slowness of the track being one of the reasons for the defeat.
“It was disappointing. The wicket slowed up a bit as the game went on. We got off to a good start with Jos [Buttler] and [Ben Stokes] Stokesy, then we lost a couple wickets and got another partnership between Stokesy and Sanju [Samson], then again lost wickets in clumps and on slow wickets it is hard to make up too many runs at the back-end,” Smith said.
“We needed to take it a bit deeper from some of our batters and we were not able to do that. We thought we bowled well at the back-end and restricted them to 160-odd, that was probably around par on this wicket,” the Royals skipper said.