NEW DELHI: In the end, a collective effort from their young Indian batsmen helped Delhi Daredevils chase down 186 with six wickets to spare against Sunrisers Hyderabad at Feroz Shah Kotla Stadium on Tuesday. Despite no one converting starts, contributions everywhere helped the hosts keep their chances of reaching the play-offs alive.
Stand-in skipper Karun Nair (39) and Sanju Samson (24) started off the chase in rollicking fashion, putting together 40 in just 4.1 overs. Though the top-scorer was Corey Anderson with an unbeaten 41, batsmen were able to stitch together crucial partnerships at good rates to always chip away at the target. The win helped Delhi climb off the bottom, moving to sixth with six points.
“It was a team effort, and finally we have shown that if we click, we can beat anyone. We want to take it match by match, and this was a good start to our last six games,” Delhi leg-spinner Amit Mishra said.
It was a day off good starts, for Hyderabad too enjoyed one. When Karun won the toss and inserted the visitors, he would have known that David Warner (30) had been in ‘boss’ mode over the past few games. And about five overs, the Karnataka lad must have been regretting his decision, having seen the Aussie and Shikhar Dhawan (28) plunder 50 runs at breakneck pace.
But Mohammed Shami came up with two crucial blows, including the all-important wicket of Warner, to help the hosts apply the brakes on Hyderabad. In between, Mishra got rid of Dhawan.
But Yuvraj Singh (70 not out) and Moises Henriques (25 not out) had other ideas. They consolidated during the middle overs, respecting the spin duo of Mishra and Jayant Yadav, who returned combined figures of 8-0-49-1. But once the pacers came on at the death, they laid siege.
“I’m happy I could get some runs today, needed it. We missed Ashish (Nehra), who is injured, but it was a good experience for the likes of (Mohammed) Siraj and Siddharth (Kaul). We’ll come back better next game,” noted Yuvraj.
Dropped by Sanju Samson off Mishra on 29, Yuvraj went ballistic towards the end, and for the first time since the opening match against Royal Challengers Bangalore, faced more than 20 balls in an innings. He reached 50 with a pull off Chris Morris in the 19th over, and together with the sedate Henriques put on an unbroken partnership of 93 runs in just 50 balls to help Hyderabad post a challenging total.
But that proved inadequate against an inspired Delhi batting line-up, led by its young but hungry Indian cast.
Points Table
M W L NR PTS NRR
MI 10 8 2 0 16 +0.427
KKR 10 7 3 0 14 +0.849
SRH 11 6 4 1 13 +0.659
RPS 10 6 4 0 12 -0.179
KXIP 9 4 5 0 8 +0.228
DD 9 3 6 0 6 -0.094
GL 10 3 7 0 6 -0.323
RCB 11 2 8 1 5 -1.441
raviiyer@newindianexpress.com