IPL 2017: Delhi Daredevils stay alive with a win over Sunrisers

An unsettled, underperforming Delhi Daredevils (DD) registered a thumping victory over the defending champions Sunrisers Hyderabad at the Feroz Shah Kotla stadium in Delhi. Sunrisers’ opening pair of David Warner and Shikhar Dhawan lived up to expectations. Delhi, the team that has been written off by most of the experts, made a comeback and conceded just 60 runs in 10 overs. Mohammad Shami was the protagonist with the ball for Delhi, spinners Amit Mishra and Jayant Yadav also tightened the screws on the flow of runs in the middle overs.

Their batsmen too played very well. Out-of-form Nair came to the party with a blistering 39 of just 20 balls, proving right coach Rahul Dravid’s constant trust in his capabilities. Rishabh Pant (34 of 20 balls) and Shreyas Iyer (33 of 25 balls) carried on from where the openers had left. Corey Anderson (41 of 24 balls) and Chris Morris (15 of 7 balls), joined the party and finished the game for Delhi without any further hiccups. With five matches to go, the Zaheer Khan led side has to emerge victorious in all of them if they want to make a play off berth their own.

Here are some defining moments of the match:

The first ball umpiring blunder

Karun Nair after winning the toss invited Hyderabad to bat. The decision to bowl an off-spinner, Jayant Yadav, against the two left handers looked more sensible when Yadav almost scalped Warner off the first delivery of the match only to be denied by the Umpire. TV replays showed three reds against Warner as the ball was pitching on line with an impact on the wickets and the ball going on to hit the wickets. Warner never looked back after that and helped his team amass 66 in the powerplay overs with an individual score of 30 of 21 balls.

Sanju Samson dropped a dolly

Yuvraj Singh was batting on 29 of 26 balls when Sanju Samson dropped a dolly of a catch off Chris Morris’ bowling. Yuvraj went on to add 41 runs of just 15 balls after the dropped chance and was mostly responsible for SRH’s total of 185 on a pitch that seemed to have slowed down once the new ball lost its shine.

Hyderabad playing just 4 specialist bowlers

Hyderabad reworked on their strategies before the game and to add to their batting firepower, they scrapped a specialist bowler. The part timers couldn’t stop or control the flow of runs and that created pressure on the specialist bowlers. Yuvraj Singh’s one over cost 16 runs and Henriques conceded 36 of just 2.1 overs.

Another Drop Catch. Bhuvi drops Karun Nair

As far as the fielding standards are concerned, IPL 10 has not be the best with a flurry of catches being dropped in the tournament already. With 186 to chase, an out of form Karun Nair was entrusted with the responsibility to open the innings for DD. Karun looked at his best in this year’s IPL since the beginning of the innings but got a huge and a much needed chance when Bhuvneshwar Kumar dropped a simple catch at fine leg off Mohammed Siraj when the youngster was still batting on just 20. Karun added another 19 before finally being dismissed and had laid on a foundation for the middle order to finish the match for his side.

The Young guns from Delhi finally came out blazing

Rahul Dravid’s constant investment of time and opportunities on the young Indian talents finally yielded success for his team. For the only IPL team that has an Indian heavy top order, it was more or less their failure to score runs which was keeping Delhi away from Success. Delhi omitted lone foreign top order batsman Sam Billings and pushed out-of-form Karun Nair at the top of the order. The decision worked wonders for the team as Karun became the main aggressor at the beginning of the chase and added a quickfire 39 for his team.