A collective batting effort helped Delhi Daredevils trump the brilliance of Yuvraj Singh as the team defeated Sunrisers Hyderabad at the Ferozeshah Kotla here on Tuesday, to mark a victorious return home.
Chasing 186, Delhi overhauled the target in 19.1 overs to win by six wickets — only its third victory of the season.
The result also helped Daredevils lift themselves from the bottom of the table into sixth spot. While every one of its matches has been billed as a battle between its bowlers and the opposition batsmen, Tuesday saw the young batting unit finally come good despite stuttering occasionally and faltering in the middle.
Like in every match so far, the Daredevils batsmen got starts but failed to convert them into big scores. The difference on Tuesday was that every batsman managed to get quick runs and, despite the wickets, DD did not allow the asking rate to climb out of control.
Every batsman had a strike-rate over 125, and that made all the difference.
Promoting himself up to open with Sanju Samson, captain Karun Nair finally got some runs under his belt after a disappointing season so far, making 39 off just 20 balls.
Reprieve
He got a ‘life’ on 21, when he was dropped by Bhuvneshwar Kumar at short fine-leg, but could not add too many runs after that; he departed top-edging to deep extra-cover where Bhuvneshwar made amends.
Shreyas Iyer, Rishabh Pant and Samson, all scored briskly, dealing in fours and sixes, but every time a partnership appeared to be developing, a wicket fell. It did not matter, though.
SRH was in the game all the way till the last few overs but DD was never out of it either.
The pace trio of Bhuvneshwar, Mohammed Siraj and Siddarth Kaul picked up wickets, and Rashid Khan attempted to slow the scoring but the Afghan teenager went wicketless for only the second time in 10 games this season; interestingly the previous occasion was against DD too.
In the absence of Ashish Nehra, the lack of a fifth bowler hurt SRH, who had to divide that share between Yuvraj and Moises Henriques. Between them, they conceded 52 runs from their 19 deliveries.
Ironically, it was the partnership of Henriques and Yuvraj with the bat earlier in the day that had put SRH in control, as the duo helped propel the score to an above-par 185.
The two added 93 runs off 51 balls, slamming 52 of those in the last three overs.
Yuvraj’s brutal assault saw him score 70 in just 41 balls, with Kagiso Rabada suffering the most.
Dropped by Samson at deep square-leg while trying to pull a bouncer from Chris Morris in the 17th over when he was on 29, Yuvraj went all out smashing the bowlers to all corners of the ground.
Earlier, fresh off a comprehensive win in its previous outing, David Warner and Shikhar Dhawan got Sunrisers off to a positive start, adding 53 runs before the skipper was bowled by Mohammed Shami who, playing only his third game of the competition, uprooted the off-stump with a perfect yorker.
