Taken at mid-off! Rahul charges down the ground aiming to go big, but he ends up slicing this high into the night sky. The bowler beats him with flight and turn, and Ruturaj Gaikwad settles under it to take a pressure catch inside the circle. Huge wicket for Chennai!

KL Rahul c Gaikwad b Hosein 12 (13)

DC: 36/2 (5.1)

Mukesh strikes! What a response from the young man! Easy catch for Brevis at mid-on. Tried to slam this over mid-on but ends up hitting it straight to Brevis, who back-pedals to take an easy catch.

Pathum Nissanka c Brevis b Mukesh Choudhary 19 (15)

DC: 29/1 (4)

Vintage KL! He leans forward and creamed a cover drive through the gap for four. He overtakes Kohli for the most fours this season. This is a strong start from DC.
DC: 12/0 (1.2)

Slashed past point! He backed away to play through the off-side and ended up slicing the arm ball. There was no one at gully to intercept it, as Sanju had decided to move the fielder into a slip just a couple of balls earlier.

DC: 8/0 (0.5)

Akeal opening the bowling for CSK! Nissanka to face the first ball. Strays on the pads and Nissanka sweeps this hard past the fielder at backward square leg and to the boundary. Perfect start for DC!

DC: 4/0 (0.1)

DC batting-first XI: KL Rahul, Pathum Nissanka, Karun Nair, Tristan Stubbs, Nitish Rana, Axar Patel, Ashutosh Sharma, Lungi Ngidi, Mitchell Starc, Kuldeep Yadav, T Natarajan

DC's Impact Player bench: Vipraj, Rizvi, Porel, Auqib, Miller

CSK bowling-first XI: Sanju Samson, Ruturaj Gaikwad, Urvil Patel, Kartik Sharma, Dewald Brevis, Jamie Overton, Akeal Hosein, Noor Ahmad, Anshul Kamboj, Mukesh Chowdhary, Gurjapneet Singh

CSK's Impact Player bench: Dube, Veer, Short, Madhwal, Sarfaraz

Axar Patel wins the toss and DC will bat first. This is a massive call, as the season has been dominated by teams chasing successfully. The decision is indeed surprising, according to experts. Lungi Ngidi is back for this game, replacing Kyle Jamieson in the playing XI.

DC have had a horror run at Arun Jaitley so far. They have won their last three games at home, mainly due to their poor fielding. The Capitals have dropped 16 catches so far in the tournament, and their catching efficiency at 65.2 per cent is the worst among all teams. 

Lungi Ngidi is back with the DC squad after completing concussion protocols. However, following Mitchell Starc's stunning season debut last time out, Ngidi is likely to sit out this one.

After suffering from a bad Form in Early stage of IPL 2026, Ruturaj Gaikwad is back in form. He scored a unbeaten 67 in the previous match - his second consecutive half-century. He overtook Faf Du Plessis to become the 3rd leading Run Scorer for CSK in IPL.

CSK lead 3:2 in the past five meetings against DC. This is the first game on pitch no. 4 at the Arun Jaitley Stadium this season. As per ESPNcricinfo, the team batting first has a 3-2 record since the last two seasons, even though the toss decision has been to chase in seven of the last eight games.

DC's talisman KL Rahul has scored 433 runs in nine matches so far this season. He needs just eight runs tonight to surpass Abhishek Sharma (440) in the Orange Cap race for now.

Good evening and welcome to our live blog of the IPL 2026 match between Delhi Capitals and Chennai Super Kings. Both teams have won four of their nine matches so far, with CSK (6th) sitting just ahead of DC (7th) in the points table thanks to a superior Net Run-Rate.