Chennai Super Kings continued their strong comeback journey in IPL 2026 and registered their fifth win. Chennai, captained by Ruturaj Gaikwad, defeated Delhi Capitals by 8 wickets in a completely one-sided match in their own home. With this, CSK has made the playoff race exciting. Due to the wrong decisions of Delhi Capitals and the strength of its spinners, Chennai restricted the host team to just 155 runs, after which Sanju Samson played another excellent innings and took the team to the target.
Delhi Capitals had a good chance to end the losing streak against Chennai at home. After 3 consecutive defeats, Delhi had won the last match itself and it was expected that the team would start a series on its own. but as soon as Captain Akshar Patel Everyone was surprised after winning the toss and decided to bat first. If this was not enough then the helpful pitch of the spinners ruined Delhi’s decision.
Delhi trapped by its own decision
Openers KL Rahul (12) and Pathum Nissanka (19), who led Delhi to victory by playing explosive innings in the last match, did not play this time. Both were out in the powerplay itself, while the score remained only 37 runs. Then the magic of spinner Noor Ahmed (2/22) was seen, who shocked Delhi’s efforts to make a comeback by taking 2 wickets and soon 5 batsmen had returned to the pavilion for 69 runs. From here Tristan Stubbs (38) and impact player Sameer Rizvi (40 not out) handled the innings. On the basis of the 65-run partnership between the two, the team somehow managed to reach the score of 155 runs. Apart from Noor, spinner Akil Hossain (1/19) also bowled economically.
Samson-Karthik partnership won
After his innings, Delhi captain Axar Patel must have hoped that he and Kuldeep Yadav would also control the Chennai batsmen in the same way. Lungi Ngidi and Akshar gave some hope by taking 2 wickets for 45 runs but after that Sanju Samson did not give any chance to this team. Especially he targeted Kuldeep Yadav and T Natarajan and scored boundaries against them.
During this time, Samson got the support of young batsman Karthik Sharma, who had led the team to victory by scoring an unbeaten half-century in the last match itself. Sanju scored his half-century in just 32 balls and along with Karthik took him to victory. However, Sanju could not complete his third century in this season because the target came before the century. He returned unbeaten after scoring 87 runs. He made an unbeaten partnership of 114 runs with Karthik. Karthik remained not out for the second consecutive match after scoring 41 runs.
