IPL 2025: Captain Axar fined for DC's slow over rate against MI

New Delhi, April 14 (IANS) Delhi Capitals captain Axar Patel has been fined after his team maintained a slow over-rate during IPL 2025 against Mumbai Indians at the Arun Jaitley Stadium.

Axar was found breaching Article 2.22 of the code of conduct for maintaining the slow over rate. As per Article 2.22 of the code of conduct, captain is fined Rs 12 lakh for the first slow over rate offence in a season.

"As this was his team’s first offence of the season under Article 2.22 of the IPL’s Code of Conduct, which pertains to minimum over-rate offences, Patel was fined Rs 12 lakhs," the IPL statement read.

Other captains who have suffered over-rate fines in IPL 2025 include Hardik Pandya of Mumbai Indians (MI), Rishabh Pant of Lucknow Super Giants (LSG) and Rajat Patidar of Royal Challengers Bengaluru (RCB).

In the match, MI held their nerves to script a dramatic 12-run win over DC at the Arun Jaitley Stadium after posting 205/5. Despite Karun Nair’s sensational 89 off 40 balls, the hosts fell short in a high-scoring thriller, undone by Karn Sharma’s timely 3-fer and a bizarre hat-trick of run-outs in the penultimate over.

With Ashutosh Sharma and Vipraj Nigam threatening to pull off another heist for DC, their sub-par batting and MI's excellent fielding plus bowling, along with a ball change after the 13th over, ensured DC were all out for 193 in 19 overs.

It also meant that DC's winning juggernaut has been brought to a halt on return to their home turf.

"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 every time. 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.

"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," Axar said after the match.

With the win, MI moved to seventh in the standings with two wins in six games, while DC are second after facing their first loss of the season in five matches.

--IANS

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