New Delhi: ‘What was he thinking?’. ‘What was he doing?’ ‘Why didn’t he run?’ These were some of the questions that followed Delhi Capitals’ one-run defeat against Gujarat Titans in the ongoing IPL 2026.There is ‘he’ in the question. David Miller. The South African batsman experienced a storm at the Arun Jaitley Stadium on Wednesday.Go beyond limits with our YouTube channel. Subscribe now!First, while fielding, he injured his right hand when he dived on the practice pitches to stop a Sai Sudharsan cover drive.After trying to finish it off, he came in to bat but the effects were all too evident with just 10 balls to go in pursuit of 211 runs. The blow was already compounded as he dived to make the crease.At that point, DC were 130/3 and needed 81 off 42 balls and KL Rahul scored 69 off 37 balls. When Miller reappeared, DC had lost Tristan Stubbs on a run-out and the equation on the scoreboard read: 51 needed off 20 balls. Three balls later, Rahul goes for a good outside off ball. Muhammad Siraj And the inside edge was easily wrapped up by keeper Jos Buttler.The burden of responsibility and accountability had suddenly shifted to the battered and bruised 36-year-old Miller.He added just 6 off 3 balls on resuming his innings as the required rate reached 18.00. And this is where the game turned.Miller scored 6, 4 and 6 off Mohammad Siraj, the fast bowler bringing the equation closer with 23 runs in the final over. It also helped that GT were penalized for a slow over-rate, forcing an extra fielder back into the circle.In the last over, Miller needed 13 runs from 6 off 3 balls when he got a chance. Next ball, Prasad Krishna came around the wicket, was bowled in the arc and was duly punished for hitting a six in the third tier of the stadium. A massive 106 meter hit!Then came the moment that stunned everyone and would be debated for weeks. A pull shot went to deep square leg and Miller denied a single with DC needing 2 off 2 balls. Had he completed that safe run, Kuldeep Yadav would have been asked to finish things off or at least force a super over.Instead, as Parsed bowled a brilliant last ball under pressure, DC were unable to add to their tally and instead fell a run short.Finisher without a finishA few days ago, as Punjab Kings chased down 210 runs against Chennai Super Kings in Chepauk, CSK head coach Stephen Fleming claimed that there is no place for finishers in T20s anymore.“Look, I don’t think there’s such a thing as finishers anymore. It’s right from the first ball, everybody’s going knock-on. It’s not ‘make it to the 16th over and then go hard’. Everybody’s going hard from ball one. So run-rates of 10, 11, 12 are expected all the way through and you say towards the end it’s not the big one that’s expected.”The DC chase, though unsuccessful, disproved this theory. If Delhi Capitals were scoring 10.5 runs per over in the powerplay and 8.77 runs in the middle, they reached 13.40 in the last five overs. The 16th over went for 16 runs and Siraj’s 19th over scored 23 runs, the joint highest over of the night.When asked about Miller’s decision not to run back, no one had a proper answer. Gill believed they had a “chance to win”. DC Captain Akshar Patel “Things could have gone either way,” he said. “I think, those kind of close games, you can, you know, point to anything. So I think, yeah, we played very good cricket. Like I said before, in a close chase, in a close game, you can point to a lot of things. But I think in the chase, I think we could have played smarter,” Aksar said.DC opener Patham Nissanka didn’t reveal much when he said, “We haven’t discussed it yet, but sometimes it happens in cricket,” in the post-match press conference. Rashid Khanplayer of the match, was quite happy that he was not in Miller’s shoes at the time.They can best explain what was going through Miller’s head. One can only guess from the outside. But deep inside, DC will regret missing this golden opportunity.
