Axar Patel's savage response to Murali Karthik's ‘disappointing' query after MI ‘went away with win’ in Delhi

Delhi Capitals suffered their first defeat of the season on Sunday night as Mumbai Indians returned to winning ways after holding their nerves in the final overs at Arun Jaitley Stadium, Delhi. Hardik Pandya and Co. forced a late Delhi collapse as the match turned the visitors' way in the final minutes. The Capitals' tail panicked and crumbled under pressure as three of the batters were run out in the penultimate over as Mumbai won the match with one over to spare.

Chasing the 206-run target, Delhi were in cruise control when Karun Nair and Abishek Porel were batting in the middle. Nair, who got the chance for the first time in the XI this season, scored 89 runs off 40 balls as he stitched a 119-run partnership with Porel (33). However, Karn Sharma spun his web to turn the match in MI's way with quick wickets of Porel, KL Rahul (15) and Tristan Stubbs (1).

After the match, commentator Murali Karthik asked DC skipper Axar Patel about his disappointment with the result and raised a question, "Aapke hisaab se match kaha pe gaya (according to you, where did the match go)?"

Axar had a big smile on his face when Karthik said that "disappointment is visible on his face", and he had a savage reply to his query, “ Mumbai ke paas (went towards Mumbai).”

Delhi Capitals skipper Axar Patel blamed "soft dismissals" in the middle order for the loss but didn't want to dwell too much on the result.

Meanwhile, Axar did talk about where Delhi lost their way in the chase and blamed soft dismissals in the middle order which shifted the momentum in Mumbai's way.

"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 everytime. Don't need to overthink, just one of those days. Was happy at the halfway stage," Axar told broadcasters.

“Kuldeep is bowling unbelievably this season”

Axar also pointed to sloppy fielding as a factor that allowed MI to cross the 200-mark but praised his spin unit.

"Maybe if we had caught better, we'd have kept them to a lower score. I get confidence in bowling all three of our spinners, and two of the three can also bowl in the powerplay. Kuldeep is bowling unbelievably this season. Whenever I need a wicket, I can go to him. I think there were a lot of positives today — we just need to forget about this game," he concluded.