After their 18-run win in the high-scoring encounter against Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) in Sharjah this Saturday (October 3), Delhi Capitals (DC) pacer Kagiso Rabada emphasized the importance of dismissing opposition's explosive batsman Andre Russell cheaply in the run-chase.

Defending their 229-run target, DC needed to make sure Russell can't inflict much damage on them. The big Jamaican, however, could only manage 13 runs from eight deliveries at No.4, as he was out caught by the third man off a bouncer from Rabada in the 10th over of the run-chase. 

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"We started off really well, it was nice to get Russell's wicket, we have seen in this IPL that the games are never over, the batters got us extra few runs that we could have played with, they got us extra 30 runs and at the end, that's what won us the game. The batters won the game for us in the end," Rabada told fellow DC pacer Anrich Nortje in a video posted over official IPL twitter handle. 

Despite Russell's failure, KKR could take the game close due to brilliant knocks from middle-order batsmen Eoin Morgan (44) and Rahul Tripathi (36) after No.3 Nitish Rana (58) had set-up a good foundation through his matured half-century. 

But Nortje (3/33) ensured his team still inches past the opponent by dismissing Morgan as he was threatening to take the game away. Nortje had earlier got the better of KKR's attacking opener Sunil Narine (3) as well. 

"I think it was skidding at the end and yeah, we were trying to execute what we had planned to," he told Rabada. "We said let's try to hit the yorkers and find out what the wicket can offer to us."

"Luckily, the bouncer went nicely to Narine and then I bowled the ball at the top of off-stump to Narine and it worked, I just tried to stick to the plan against Narine," he added. 

Only Russell (2/29) went unscathed among the KKR bowlers in the first half where DC batsmen Shreyas Iyer (88*), Prithvi Shaw (66) and Rishabh Pant (38) dominated the proceedings. 

(Inputs from ANI)