A recap of Nitish Rana and Digvesh Rathi's altercation in DPL 2025 eliminator

Despite rain, Delhi’s heat got the better of players in Delhi Premier League’s eliminator between West Delhi Lions and South Delhi Superstarz on Friday.

The players, knowing what is at stake, left nothing in the tank and that also included emotions.

Considering the pressure, one can justify some actions which are under the guidelines but some which cross the line cannot be overlooked. Like on Friday night, when players could not control their emotions and resorted heated exchanges.

It started in the 10th over when Digvesh Rathi, South Delhi Superstarz’s main bowler, came on to bowl and was hit for boundaries by West Delhi Lions’ skipper Nitish Rana. Rathi got frustrated, especially after a limping Rana used reverse sweep to good effect, and then both he and Rana got involved in a heated exchange. Rathi then pulled out before completing his delivery on one ball. Rana responded by pulling out of strike just as Rathi was bowling the next ball, making it dead ball. The exchanges continued.

In fact just after hitting him out of the park off a reverse hit, Rana said some words to the bowler without even waiting for the ball to go over the boundary knowing he had hit it well enough.

The left-handed batsman rubbed in salt to Rathi’s wound by imitating his signature celebration – scribbling something, perhaps the name of the batsman, on his hand. Rana scribbled on his bat's face with his hand and then kissed it to tease Rathi.

Rathi bowled just two overs and conceded 22 and 17 runs to return with 0/39 off two overs.

A few balls later Krish Yadav got involved in an altercation with Sumit Mathur and the bowler Aman Bharti after he was caught in the deep before Rana grabbed Mathur’s face and pushed him back.

The altercation may have easily turned into a fistfight had it not been for umpire Gayatri, South Delhi Superstarz skipper Tesjasvi Dahiya and some other players who intervened and pulled the arguing players away from each other thereby avoiding a brawl as they came inches closer to blows.

Rathi, who is not new to these controversies and has a knack of getting under the batsmen’s skin, has not clicked as expected in this DPL.

In the league match against the same opposition, he stopped mid-action only for the batsman Ankit Kumar to return the favour next ball by swaying away from the crease when the bowler was about to deliver.

It did not go down well with Rathi and there was a verbal outburst. He was hit for consecutive maximums on the very next two deliveries. This time it was Nitish Rana’s turn to give him the recap of the earlier match.

Controversy aside, Rana played an innings that would be remembered for long. It came when his team needed it the most and when his own form was in question with his returns not very significant.

Rana remained unbeaten on 134 off 55 balls with the help of 15 sixes to see his team through to the Qualifier 2 with a seven-wicket win. They face East Delhi Riders there on Saturday. His century came off 42 balls and was the fastest this DPL season. It was the third fastest in DPL history beyond Ayush Badoni's 39-ball ton and Priyansh Arya's 40-ball century, both coming last year in the inaugural edition.

Rana was severe on Rathi, taking 38 off him from his 11 deliveries. 

Rathi was reprimanded last year in the IPL by the BCCI.

Tags : Nitish Rana, Digvesh Rathi, DPL 2025, Krish Yadav, Tejasvi Dahiya, Ayush Badoni