After a few early hiccups, Delhi Capitals cruised to a six-wicket victory over Royal Challengers Bangalore in Bangalore on Thursday thanks to a brilliant unbeaten 93 in just 53 balls by KL Rahul.
After being reduced to 58/4, Rahul and Tristan Stubbs added an unbroken 111 for the fifth wicket, with the South African being an able foil with 38 off 23 balls.
Rahul, who reached his fifty in 37 balls, then stepped on the gas, hitting Josh Hazlewood for 22 in the 15th over including three fours and a six.
He finished the game with 13 balls to spare by hitting Yash Dayal for a six over long leg.
Delhi Capitals are now second in the points table, with the same number of points as Gujarat Titans who have a slightly better net run rate. Unlike Gujarat, Delhi are yet to lose a game in IPL 2025.
Earlier, RCB struck early blows to peg back DC, with both openers falling within the first 13 balls of the innings.
Faf du Plessis, returning to his former home ground, was the first to go for two, getting a leading edge to mid off as he attempted a slog across the line off Yash Dayal.
Jake Fraser-McGurk's poor form then continued as the Aussie skied a Bhuvaneswar Kumar delivery and was caught by wicket keeper Jitesh Sharma for seven.
Abhishek Porel was dismissed by the same Jitesh-Bhuvi combo for the same score after also skying one in an attempted heave to leg, leaving DC at 31/3 after five overs.
When skipper Axar Patel also followed them back to the dugout for 15, RCB were cock-a-hoop. But Rahul would play spoilsport.
Just when it seemed that Royal Challengers Bangalore would fall short of 150, a late flurry by Tim David took the hosts to 163/7.
David smacked an unbeaten 37 off 20 balls, with the last two overs bowled by Axar Patel and Mukesh Kumar going for 17 and 19 respectively.
Earlier, a blitzkrieg by Phil Salt saw RCB reach the 50 mark in just three overs.
The second over by skipper Axar Patel went for 16 while the third over by Mitchell Starc disappeared for 30.
But the Delhi Capitals bowlers fought back brilliantly to reduce RCB to 125/7 before David's cameo helped them post a respectable though still below-par total.
DC needed a stroke of luck to dismiss a rampaging Salt who failed to make his ground after being sent back by Virat Kohli while trying to take a quick single. Salt had smashed 37 in 17 balls.
They struck again when Devdutt Padikkal fell for just one, caught at mid on by Axar off Mukesh Kumar whose first over was a wicket maiden.
Kohli then struck a six off Vipraj Nigam but the DC leg spinner had the last laugh, having him caught by Starc for 22 off 14 balls. That left RCB at 74/3 at the end of seven overs.
Wickets continued to tumble at regular intervals with Kuldeep Yadav striking twice to remove Jitesh Sharma and skipper Rajat Patidar.
Delhi Capitals had won the toss and chose to bowl first against Royal Challengers Bengaluru in the 24th match of the Indian Premier League 2025 at the M. Chinnaswamy Stadium in Bengaluru.
DC comes into the match as the only unbeaten side this season, having won all three of their matches so far. RCB, with three wins from four games, will be looking forward to stopping DC’s winning streak.
Faf du Plessis returns to the XI for Delhi after missing the last game due to injury, while Bengaluru go unchanged.
Playing XI
Royal Challengers Bengaluru: Virat Kohli, Phil Salt, Devdutt Padikkal, Rajat Patidar (c), Liam Livingstone, Jitesh Sharma (wk), Tim David, Krunal Pandya, Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Josh Hazlewood, Yash Dayal
Delhi Capitals: Jake Fraser-McGurk, Faf du Plessis, KL Rahul (wk), Tristan Stubbs, Ashutosh Sharma, Axar Patel (capt), Vipraj Nigam, Mitchell Starc, Kuldeep Yadav, Mohit Sharma, Mukesh Kumar
Impact players
RCB: Suyash Sharma, Rasikh Salam, Manoj Bhandage, Jacob Bethell, Swapnil Singh
DC: Abishek Porel, Darshan Nalkande, Karun Nair, Sameer Rizvi, Donovan