Delhi Capitals beat Rajasthan by seven

Delhi finally got the kind of win that changes the mood of a season. A 226 chase in Jaipur is not supposed to feel controlled, but Delhi Capitals made it look that way for long stretches and beat Rajasthan Royals by seven wickets on May 1. That matters because Delhi had lost three straight and was starting to drift out of the IPL playoff picture. Instead, KL Rahul and Pathum Nissanka dragged them back into the race with their highest successful chase in league history. (iplt20.com) ### Why was this such a big result? Because 226 is a huge target even in this tournament, and Delhi were coming in flat. Rajasthan posted 225/6 at the Sawai Mansingh Stadium, which usually puts the chasing side under scoreboard pressure from ball one. But Delhi got ahead of the asking rate early and never(iplt20.com)ls you how clean the batting was. (espncricinfo.com) ### Who actually won the game? Rahul was the anchor and the accelerator at once. He made 75 from 40 balls and took player of the match, while Nissanka blasted 62 from 29 to give Delhi the perfect start. That pairing did the hard part — turning a giant chase into a sequence of manageable targets. Once they had broken the back of it, Tristan Stubbs and Ashutosh Sharma closed it out. (iplt20.com) ### What did Rajasthan do right? Quite a bit with the bat, honestly. Riyan Parag played his best knock of the season — 90 from 50 — and Donovan Ferreira’s unbeaten 47 from 14 gave the innings a late jolt. Dhruv Jurel added 42, so this was not a collapse papered over by one cameo. Rajasthan got to a total (iplt20.com)ork with, and when Delhi’s top order came hard, the total stopped looking safe. (espncricinfo.com) ### Did the toss decide it? Not by itself, but the pattern is hard to ignore. Jaipur has now produced another game where a team batting first got to around 230 and still looked vulnerable. On a surface like that, the second innings can feel like batting wit(espncricinfo.com)r found the squeeze overs that a defense this size needs. (espncricinfo.com) ### What changed for Delhi? The top order finally clicked together. Delhi had been wobbling because good individual innings were not lining up in the same match. Here they did. Nissanka gave them immediate momentum, Rahul controlled the middle, and the fini(espncricinfo.com) but because it stopped the total from getting even uglier. (espncricinfo.com) ### What does this do to the table? It keeps Delhi alive. The win ended their three-match losing streak and lifted them in a crowded middle pack, while Rajasthan took another hit in a season that has kept slipping away. Delhi are still not safe — far from it — but now the path is visible again. Rajasthan, meanwhile, look like a team running out of matches and answers at the same time. (zeenews.india.com) ### Did Rahul’s Orange Cap push matter too? Yes, because it shows how central he has become to Delhi’s season. This was not just a flashy cameo in a chase already under control. Rahul’s 75 moved him to the front of the run-scoring race and underlined that Delhi’s batting now runs through him. In a tight playoff scramble, that kind of form is not trivia — it is the whole equation. (moneycontrol.com) ### Bottom line Delhi did not just win a game. They proved they can survive a shootout, trust a massive chase, and lean on Rahul when the season starts tightening. Rajasthan scored enough to win and still lost comfortably — which is a brutal sign of where both teams are heading. (iplt20.com)