Axar Patel provides a crucial update on his hand injury after DC's 14-run loss in IPL 2025 match against KKR

Delhi Capitals captain Axar Patel has provided an update on his hand injury after their 14-run defeat to the Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) in IPL 2025 on Tuesday at the Arun Jaitley Stadium. The left-arm spinner revealed that the skin on his hand had peeled off after getting dragged on the surface, leading to pain when he was batting.

The incident occurred in the 18th over of the first innings as Axar put a full-stretch dive to prevent some runs to Rovman Powell off leg-spinner Vipraj Nigam's bowling. He was wincing in pain and left the field almost immediately with the Capitals' lead physio Patrick Farhat. As a result, Faf du Plessis had taken over as captain for the final 2.2 overs of the Knight Riders' innings.

Speaking at the post-game presentation, the 31-year-old said, as quoted by ESPN Cricinfo:

"I dragged my palm across the [practice] wicket so my skin peeled off. Whenever I tried to hit the ball and the handle brushed [the hand], I felt a lot of pain but the good thing is we have a three-four day break. Then we play SRH. It would be great if it gets alright by then."

The southpaw was considered fit to bat and scored a vital 23-ball 43 with four boundaries and three sixes, stitching a 76-run partnership with Du Plessis. After Du Plessis' 62, Vipraj Nigam showed fight with a 19-ball 38 but the Capitals managed only 190 in response to Kolkata's 204.

"Luck sometimes works in your favour and sometimes against" - Axar Patel

Axar Patel. (Image Credits: Getty)

Axar felt the Capitals gave away 15-20 runs more while bowling but reckoned there was little to choose between the two sides, given the margin of defeat.

"The way we bowled in the powerplay, thought we gave 15-20 too many. in the chase, there were some miscalculations and soft dismissals. The way we restricted them after the powerplay was good. The way we batted, even if two-three batters did well, we lost by very little. When you lose close matches, you know you have to be calm in the middle. When Vipraj was scoring runs, we had hopes. If Ashutosh would have stayed, it would have helped. Luck sometimes works in your favour and sometimes against."

The Capitals will next face the SunRisers Hyderabad on May 5 in an away fixture.