Former Australian skipper Aaron Finch hailed Ishant Sharma after Delhi Capitals defeated defending champions Gujarat Titans by five runs at the Narendra Modi Stadium, Ahmedabad on Tuesday. DC had a tough job of defending only 131 runs on the board but their bowlers were able to put their hand up.

Ishant Sharma returned with impressive figures of 2-23 in his quota of four overs and played a key role in keeping GT to 125-6. The lanky paceman flummoxed Vijay Shankar with a brilliant knuckleball and also got the big wicket of Rahul Tewatia in the final over.

In fact, Anrich Nortje was taken for 21 runs in the penultimate over of the match. However, Ishant nailed his yorkers against Rahul Tewatia and Hardik Pandya to defend 12 runs in the last over.

“He (Ishant) certainly did step up and I think everyone who knows Ishant Sharma is really happy for him because the thing that is so impressive is even at his age and his experience, he’s gone away and developed extra skills, got that knuckleball now.”

“The fact that he can load it up so late in his delivery means that he has put so much time and effort into that. Getting rewarded for it is brilliant,” Finch told IPL’s official TV broadcaster after DC defeated GT.

Apart from Ishant Sharma, Khaleel Ahmed also returned with impressive figures of 2-24 in his quota of four overs. Furthermore, Kuldeep Yadav bowled a miser spell as he conceded only 15 runs in his quota of four overs and also took the wicket of David Miller.

This was Delhi Capitals’ lowest-ever successful total defense in the history of the IPL.

DC will next take on Royal Challengers Bangalore on Saturday at the Arun Jaitley Stadium, Delhi.