"Tushar Despande was amazing, especially under such amount of pressure, we got him in and he responded nicely. He got the crucial wicket of Stokes, he kept his cool, he has been working really hard in the nets. "Even in the last over, he was clear in his plans, really happy to see him do so well and he backed himself," Dhawan said. Opting to bat, the Capitals posted 161/7 with the help of half centuries by Dhawan (57) and Iyer (53). "Till 10th over, both the teams were equal and they were right up there in the chase. We talked about getting positive energy going, we knew if we got wickets at the top of the order, then we can come back in the match," Dhawan added. After struggling to capitalise his starts at the beginning of the tournament, Dhawan scored his second consecutive fifty. He also became the fourth Indian to complete 7500 runs in T20 cricket.

"My mindset was to play positive cricket only, I did not play Archer much as I was in the other end. We knew wickets were getting slower so it was important to score runs in the first six overs, we lost two wickets early but still we kept the courage and we kept on going." The Royals' bowlers provided their team with a bright start, giving away just 32 runs in the last five overs. Jofra Archer returned with the best bowling figures as he finished with 3-19. However, the batsmen once again failed to live up to the billing, losing wickets at regular intervals and spin bowling coach Sairaj Bahutule rued the lack of substantial partnerships.

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"Well, I think partnerships were pretty important, the start we got through Jos Buttler and Ben Stokes, we did not need to lose these many wickets and especially that run out of Riyan Parag," Bahutule said. "The most important part was the wicket of Stokes and the run-out was very crucial, we could have probably avoided that and if Sanju stayed at the wicket, we could have taken the game a bit deeper and got these runs," he added. Skipper Steve Smith has scored in single digits in last five of the six games. Against the Capitals, he scored just a run from four balls but Bahutule remained confident about the Australlian's abilities to strike form. "I think Smith is a fantastic captain for us, he is a great leader, he had a good start in the tournament, he is a guy who works on his game, I am sure he will make the coming games count and score his runs," he said.

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