East Delhi Riders clinched a thrilling three-run win over South Delhi Superstarz to win the inaugural Delhi Premier League T20 in New Delhi. A late assault from Mayank Rawat (78 not out off 39) including seven fours and six sixes powered East Delhi Riders to 183 for 5 before three wicket hauls from Simarjeet Singh and Raunak Waghela sealed their intense win on Sunday night. The South Delhi Superstarz faltered early in the run chase. Despite being on course with their run rate, they lost the dangerous duo of Priyansh Arya (6 off 2) and Ayush Badoni (7 off 5) to Bhagwan Singh and Simarjeet Singh respectively.

Impact player Kunwar Bidhuri (22 off 19) was also caught and bowled by Mayank Rawat to finish the powerplay at 57/3.

Sumit Mathur (18 off 15) was the next batsman to go after he constructed a 22 run partnership with Tejaswi Dahiya who completed a half century.

Vision Panchal smashed a nine-ball 25 with three sixes and a four but was dismissed by Raunak Waghela to leave South Delhi Superstarz at 109/7 in 13.5 overs.

With Tejaswi Dahiya regularly finding the boundary, the South Delhi Superstarz needed 26 runs off 12 balls.

Dahiya launched a maximum off Simarjeet in the penultimate over but was removed two balls later.

In the final over, Digvesh Rathi (21 not out off 16) hit a six and two fours but South Delhi Superstarz finished short at 180/9 in 20 overs.

Opting to bat, the East Delhi Riders lost both openers in the powerplay and were 27/2 in 4.5 overs.

Himmat Singh (20 off 20) and Hardik Sharma (21 of 16) briefly steadied the ship with a 24-run partnership.

Rawat ramped up the intensity and combined with Kavya Gupta (16 off 12) for a 47-run partnership in 35 balls.

Gupta became Kuldip Yadav’s second wicket of the night to leave East Delhi Riders at 116/5 in 15.4 overs.

Rawat steered East Delhi Riders through the death overs bringing up a 34-ball half century.

Supported by Harsh Tyagi (17 off 12) at the other end, Rawat tore into Ayush Badoni in the final over smashing five sixes (6,0,6,6,6,6) to prop their total.

He wears Virat Kohli’s jersey number 18 on his back, idolises the batting maestro, and hopes to play for his IPL team, Royal Challengers Bengaluru, someday. Delhi Premier League sensation Priyansh Arya, who became the first player to hit six sixes in an over in the ongoing tournament, said he was not paying much attention to his prospects of getting picked at the mega auction of Indian Premier League. Arya is currently the highest run getter in DPL with a mindboggling 602 runs in 9 innings, with two hundreds to his name. He has an impressive average of 75.25 and an astonishing strike rate of 198.0.

“Virat Kohli is my favourite, want to play for RCB. My favourite team is RCB, admire Virat Kohli a lot, I like his aggression. I also like to play aggressive cricket. He is my idol,” said Priyansh in an exclusive interview with PTI Videos on Tuesday.

Regarding the six straight maximums, he said, “I had this thing in mind that if a left-arm spinner comes on to bowl, I will attack him. After the fourth six, I started to believe that I can hit six sixes and will go for that. Ayush backed me and told me to go for the kill,” he reflected on his game.

Arya, who could become the highest run getter in one single edition of state T20 leagues in India, has his sights set on the DPL trophy. He praised captain Ayush Badoni for his leadership skills and said that he always backs everyone to go out and express themselves on the field.

“Badoni’s quite relaxed and doesn’t talk much, just tells us to express ourselves. The team’s environment is calm, coaches talk about the positives rather than negatives. The mindset is to win the trophy.

“The semi-final and final are the two most important matches so just taking it game by game,” said the youngster.

South Delhi Superstarz also made a few significant changes to their playing XI towards the business end of the tournament.

Captain Badoni himself was seen on the bench and that decision left South Delhi on the backfoot.

“Ayush took the risk for changes in the team. Our team will become strong again when he comes back. We were able to rectify where we were lacking and where we could perform better,” he concluded.