Internet Desk: The Delhi Daredevils have generally started poorly this season, before clawing way back into contests. That was an anomaly that needed fixing. Zaheer Khan’s team did that in style on Tuesday night, that too against table-toppers Gujarat Lions who they defeated by eight wickets.
After opting to bowl first, the Daredevils broke the backbone of the home team in the first four overs, and then rode on the back of their best opening partnership of the season, cruising to a comprehensive victory.
In pursuit of the target of 150, two young left-handers – Quinton de Kock and Rishabh Pant (who replaced Shreyas Iyer) – saw their team off to a rollicking start. They scored 10 of the first over, 14 of the second over and were off the blocks in a flash. By the completion of the Powerplay period, the visitors had raced to 61-0 (where the Lions were 35-3). Courtesy the swashbuckling start, the required run-rate, which was 7.50 at the start of the innings, had nosedived to 6.35. The two left-handers were not separated until they had added 115 runs in 13.3 overs; to put things in perspective, the aggregate of DD’s opening partnership previously in the season was a paltry 58 runs.
Both batsmen matched each other stroke for stroke early on; after six overs, de Kock was 29 while Pant was 30. The 18-year old Pant was the more enterprising of the two batsmen; one got to see exquisitely timed strokes and some powerful strikes from the teenager in equal measure. He opened his account with a crisply timed boundary through midwicket and followed it up with two more boundaries in the second over. He got to his half-century in style, hitting Suresh Raina for a six over long on, in the same over that he hit the Lions skipper for consecutive boundaries. Pant’s 25-ball 50 made him the second-youngest player to score a half-century in the IPL.
de Kock, who’d hit a brief lean patch, was handed a piece of luck when Dinesh Karthik missed the opportunity to stump him. The South African was happy to play second fiddle to the teenager at the other end; he made 46 from 44 balls, which included four boundaries and a six, before he was dismissed in the 15th over. JP Duminy (13 from 17 balls) and Sanju Samson (19 from 13 balls) polished the chase off, with the latter hitting the ball outside the park to complete the job. DD won with eight wickets in hand, and completed the task in hand in 17.2 overs.
Earlier in the evening, for the second time in two matches, the Gujarat Lions didn’t get going with the bat. Their formidable top order – comprising Dwayne Smith, Brendon McCullum and Aaron Finch (who replaced an injured Dwayne Bravo) – were sent packing for a total of 21 runs, with all three overseas batsmen back in the dressing room at the end of the fourth over. The Lions captain Suresh Raina (24 from 20 balls) added 51 runs in the company of Dinesh Karthik to resurrect the innings. After Raina was stumped off the bowling of Amit Mishra in the eleventh over, Karthik was involved in a partnership of 52 runs with Ravindra Jadeja. The common factor in both partnerships was the urgency shown by the batsmen; they picked up boundaries regularly, but most importantly put pressure on the fielders by picking up quick singles and scampering the twos.
Karthik was dismissed in the 18th over for 53 – his second half-century of the season – when he made room and attempted to hit through the off-side, but didn’t make contact and Mohammed Shami’s delivery disturbed the woodwork. Jadeja, slow to begin with, finished unbeaten on 36 from 26 balls; the left-hander hit four boundaries and a six. The Lions finished their allotted twenty overs at 149-7.
Shahbaz Nadeem, who was given his second outing of the season, caused the most damage, dismissing both Smith and Finch. The left-arm spinner returned with figures of 3-0-23-2. The rest of the wickets were shared by Chris Morris, Zaheer Khan, Shami and Mishra, who all had a very good day with the ball. Zaheer Khan was impressive as captain yet again, getting his fields right and working out tactics; opening the bowling with a spinner against the McCullum, who has struggled against spin early on, is just a case in point.