Delhi Capitals captain Axar Patel admitted they had the game in their pocket but soft dismissals and poor shot selection led to their 12-run loss against Mumbai Indians at the Arun Jaitley Stadium, Delhi on Sunday. Chasing 206 runs for the win, Delhi were motoring along at 119-1 after 10.1 overs.

In-form Karun Nair scored a blistering knock of 89 runs off just 40 balls after returning to the IPL following a 1077-day hiatus. But after he was squared up by Mitchell Santner, the home team veered off the track in the run-chase as they kept losing wickets at regular intervals. Barring Nair, none of the other batters could go past the 35-run mark.

Towards the end, DC needed 15 runs off nine balls but three consecutive run-outs of Ashutosh Sharma, Kuldeep Yadav, and Mohit Sharma sealed the deal for Mumbai Indians in the penultimate over.

Axar Patel said in the post-match presentation, “We had the game in the bag. Some soft dismissals and bad shots in the middle order. You can’t leave it to the batters in the lower order everytime. Don’t need to overthink, just one of those days. Was happy at the halfway stage. The ball was stopping initially but it got better. And then dew helped us further.”

Adding further, Patel showered praise on Kuldeep Yadav, who returned with impressive figures of 2-23, accounting for Suryakumar Yadav and Ryan Rickelton.

Patel concluded, “Out of our three spinners, two can bowl in powerplay and death as well. Kuldeep is bowling unbelievably well. Need to forget this game from a batting point of view.”

This was DC’s first loss of the season and they would look to bounce back strongly. Axar Patel’s team will next take on Rajasthan Royals at the Arun Jaitley Stadium, Delhi on Wednesday.