IPL 2026: Sameer Rizvi's fifty guides Delhi Capitals to an emphatic 6-wicket win against Lucknow Super Giants

Delhi Capitals delivered a crunch performance in their opening IPL 2026 game against Lucknow Super Giants. The visitors had a sensational start to the game, bundling the Rishabh Pant-led side to 141 runs in the first innings but the game wasn’t quite done and dusted. Delhi suffered early blows as star batter KL Rahul departed for a golden duck. Pathum Nissanka, who made his debut tonight, made just one.

Nitish Rana and Axar Patel failed to keep the scoreboard ticking as well, as Delhi found themselves reeling at 26/4. Lucknow were breathing fire in the middle but Sameer Rizvi and Tristan Stubbs’ measured knocks changed the complexion of the game. The duo stitched a partnership of 118 runs to help Delhi win the game by six wickets, which briefly looked out of their reach at one point.

In the first innings of the match at the Ekana, Lungi Ngidi and T Natarajan stole the show with the ball. The duo clinched three wickets each and that put Lucknow completely on the backfoot. Ngidi,



in particular, was extremely smart with his variations as his wicket to dismiss Nicholas Pooran could very well go down as the best ball of the tournament. The South Africa pacer bowled a slower one and that completely bamboozled Pooran as he failed to time it completely. 

For Lucknow, Abdul Samad had a decent outing, scoring 36 runs off 25 balls. Opener Mitchell Marsh too kept the scoreboard ticking for a while, adding 35, but he had very little support from the other end. Interestingly, captain Rishabh Pant promoted himself to open, which didn’t quite work well for the team as the southpaw made only seven runs in nine balls. Aiden Markram, who moved to number three, struggled as well.

Pooran, who was arguably one of their best batters last season, was moved to number five, which made very little sense. Now, since the team was struggling with the bat, they were forced to bring in Shahbaz Ahmed for support with the bat, which resulted in Digvesh Rathi sitting out.