Mitchell Marsh made the difference between RR winning and losing tonight, smashing a 62-ball 89 and sharing a century stand with David Warner to get DC near to the finish line. If RR had taken a review for a leg-before call, he may have been ejected early in his innings. They assumed he got his bat down in time, though, and gave him life. Following that, RR was unable to hang on to opportunities that came their way, allowing DC’s batters to escape.
Marsh was overjoyed with his first significant hit for the team after a shaky start to the season. He was not only recovering from an injury sustained in Pakistan, but he was also suffering from COVID.
“I came off my injury and COVID in my first two games in this IPL and felt fairly primitive, to be honest,” Marsh remarked. “I hadn’t played in a couple of months but the last 3-4 games, I felt like I’ve been batting really well and just hadn’t been able to get that score. I think in the past I would’ve searched a bit more and questioned what I was doing, but in the last couple of weeks, I’ve stuck to every single routine, and all my processes and tonight was a great reward for that, so it was great learning.”
“If you look at both teams in the powerplay tonight, the ball was swinging around, it was nipping around. It was probably one of the tougher powerplays that I’ve batted in since I started playing T20 cricket. We just had to get through it unscathed. If you’re 2-3 down in the powerplay the game gets really hard, so we assessed that we have to cut down on our runs to ensure we’re just one down at the end of the powerplay. Credit to them, they bowled exceptionally well in the powerplay to us and made it really tough, but I think chasing 160, you’re only ever one big partnership away. That was our main focus.”
It was Marsh’s first major contribution towards Delhi’s victory in the 2022 season. His numbers include 2/25 in 3 overs with his right-arm pace after being injured due to hip flexor and then COVID-19. Marshal considers Wednesday’s win as a reward for sticking to his ways despite the off-field challenges.
