NEW DELHI: Delhi Capitals are not ready to throw in the towel just yet as they hang on to their playoff qualification hopes by a thread.On the back of a superb bowling performance from Mitchell Starc and half-centuries from KL Rahul and Abishek Porel, the Capitals beat Rajasthan Royals by five wickets here on Sunday.

A hat-trick of defeats has now put Royals in a must-win situation in the remaining two games. Royals seemed to miss the services of their premium allrounder Ravindra Jadeja, who was surprisingly benched for the crucial match against Capitals, citing ‘load management’.

Starc’s outstanding late four-wicket burst helped the Capitals claw their way back into the game as they restricted Royals to 193 for eight after the visitors got off to a rollicking start. Rahul and Porel then put Capitals on the road to victory with a century opening stand. They were aided by some wayward bowling by the Royals bowlers in the Powerplay while Yash Raj Punja flooring a sitter off Rahul, when the batsman was on zero, didn’t help matters.

Not one to be intimidated by Jofra Archer, Porel used the pace of the quickie to whip the ball out of the stadium for a six early in the Capitals chase. With Rahul too joining the party with some exquisite shots, Delhi Capitals raced to 72 without loss in the Powerplay, their best of IPL this season.

Porel played some superbly timed square drives and upper cuts to help himself to fifty but was dismissed soon afterwards for 53 off 31 balls while Rahul too couldn’t carry on after his half-century as he was out for 56 off 42 balls. There were some nerves in the hosts’ camp when Capitals lost some quick wickets towards the end. However, skipper Axar Patel allayed those fears with a timely unbeaten 34 from 18 balls while ‘impact player’ Ashutosh Sharma provided a late cameo off 18 from five balls to take Capitals home with four balls to spare.

Earlier, Rajasthan Royals couldn’t capitalise on their explosive start as Starc used all his experience to bring Delhi Capitals back into the game.

After Vaibhav Sooryavanshi set the tone with a quickfire 46 off 21 balls, skipper Riyan Parag hit an explosive 51 from 26 balls as Royals looked charging towards an imposing total.

Despite scoring a 40-ball 53, Dhruv Jurel failed to provide the innings the final flourish as Royals lost their momentum after the dismissal of Parag and had to be content with a total of 193 for eight in 20 overs.

At 160 for two in 14 overs, Royals looked set for a total in excess of 220. But Starc, who was brought back into the attack, inflicted a triple blow on Royals in the 15th over to peg them back to a total below 200. First, he removed Parag with an off-cutter that saw the batter mistime his shot to Axar at long-on.

Parag’s 51 came off 26 balls and included three fours and five sixes. Off the next delivery, the Aussie claimed Donovan Ferreira for a duck before trapping Royals Ravi Singh lbw for four. He conceded just six runs in the over. He claimed Jurel’s wicket in his final over to finish with figures of 4/40 from four overs. Jurel top-scored with a 40-ball 53.