Stoinis, Rabada combine to overpower Kohli's Bangalore

Kagiso Rabada grabbed three wickets in four balls and Marcus Stoinis bludgeoned a quickfire half-century as the Delhi Capitals surged to the top of the Indian Premier League with a 59-run victory over Royal Challengers Bangalore.

Aaron Finch had an eventful innings opening for Bangalore. Finch was dropped twice in the first two overs and survived a potential 'Mankad' dismissal after Delhi bowler Ravi Ashwin stopped in his delivery stride to warn the Australian, who was well out of his crease backing up, to stay in his ground.

Finch was brilliantly snapped up by Pant behind the wickets in Axar Patel's first over as the Australian limited-overs captain departed for 13 off 14 balls.

Ashwin later tweeted it was the "first and final warning for 2020", adding that he and Finch were "good buddies". 

Delhi coach Ricky Ponting had asked Ashwin, who is no stranger to Mankad controversy having dismissed Englishman Jos Buttler by this method in last year's IPL, to shelve the dismissal option ahead of this IPL season, even though the Aussie coach admitted batsmen should be penalised for trying to "steal" runs.

Stoinis was fired up after being struck a painful blow on the fingers by a beam-ball from Navdeep Saini, and struck hit six fours and two sixes as he racked up 53 runs from 26 balls to propel the Ricky Ponting coached Delhi to 4-196 after Bangalore captain Virat Kohli won the toss and elected to bowl.

Rabada then took 4-24 – including the prized scalp of Kohli on 43 – to restrict Bangalore's reply at 9-137.

"Delhi Capitals are playing some really good cricket," Kohli said after the match.

"Their batting is fearless, they have got pace, they have got good spinners. I won't say they are unbeatable, but they will be hard to beat. Against this side, you have to bring your A-game. We didn't tonight."

Stoinis made Bangalore pay for a dropped catch on 30, and together with Rishabh Pant (37 off 25 balls) they put up 89 runs off 41 balls for the fourth wicket.

Prithvi Shaw had blazed 42 off 23 balls at the top of the order for Delhi and provided a quickfire start of 0-63 in the first six overs.

Bangalore came back with three wickets but Stoinis' arrival in the 12th over at 3-90 revived Delhi.

He hit six fours and two sixes as fast bowler Navdeep Saini finished with expensive figures of 0-48 off his three overs.

In the field, Delhi captain Shreyas Iyer enacted Ponting's bold ploy to introduce spinners Patel (2-18) and Ravichandran Ashwin (1-26) inside the first six overs with great success.

Top-scorer Kohli (43) became the first Indian batsman to score 9,000 runs in Twenty20s when he reached 10, but the skipper couldn't push the scoring rate against the spinners and was one of Rabada's wickets.

"I don't really plan to get wickets, you can only control I which areas to bowl," Rabada said. "

Rabada found the inside edge of Kohli's bat and then claimed Washington Sundar, Shivam Dube and Isuru Udana in the space of four balls to earn Delhi's fourth win in five games.

"Kudos to the boys ... it is really important for us to get good recovery after the games," Iyer said.

"It is not easy when you are in the bio-bubble. We try to get into team activities and get to know each other well."

Iyer said he will miss senior legs-pinner Amit Mishra, who has been ruled out of the IPL with a finger injury.

Mishra injured his ring finger attempting a return catch last Saturday while bowling against Kolkata.