On Friday, Delhi Daredevils beat Chennai Super Kings by 34 runs restoring some pride with the upset
Both Vijay Shankar who scored 36 off 29 balls and Harshal Patel who also scored 36 off 16 balls helped the Daredevils recover after a sad performance by the top order Delhi batsmen and thus helping Delhi reach a respectable 162 for five with a partnership of 65 runs off 32 balls
Both the leg-spinners Amit Mishra and Sandeep Lamichhane looked good and took three wickets amongst themselves and also restricting Chennai to 128 for 6 in their 20 overs. Patel caused a major breakthrough for Delhi as he took the crucial wicket of Rayudu who scored a half-century off 29 balls.
Out of 13 matches, this was only the 4th victory for Delhi this IPL season. Delhi has already been eliminated and just have one game to play on Sunday.
Chennai, on the other hand, has won 8 out of 13 matches and this was their fifth defeat in this year’s IPL.
Chennai were on the defensive and were slow to make runs in the first 5 overs scoring only 22 runs.
Then Rayudu showed his class and cut lose at he hit Avesh Khan for 22 runs, which included 3 sixes and a boundary.
Rayudu is Chennai’s leading run-getter and has scored 585 runs this season with an average of 48.75. He maintained his form and hit his third half-century this IPL season.
Rayudu was dismissed the very next ball after scoring his fifty and left Chennai at 70 for 2 in the first 10 overs. Chennai now needed 93 of 60 balls.
Suresh Raina had a stroke of luck when keeper Pant dropped him on the very first bowl he faced but couldn’t make good of it as he was is dismissed for 15 by Nepal spinner Lamichhane.
Even Captain Dhoni only scored 17 runs and failed to do the finishing job for his team.
While Delhi was batting Lungi Ngidi broke their backbone by picking up two wickets for 14 runs. He removed Shreyas Iyer and Pant, both in the same over. Pant scored 38 while Shreyas scored 19.
Shankar and Patel batted well and restored some dignity to the Delhi Scorecard with their partnership. Dwayne Bravo was hammered for 4 sixes in the final over and cost Chennai 26 runs
Delhi started sluggishly in the run chase scoring only 39 off the power play overs. Prithvi Shaw scored 17 off 17 deliveries and failed to impress in his third game in a row.
Iyer opened with Shaw but the beginning was shaky. Iyer shared a 54 run partnership with Pant but Ngidi removed both of them in the same over as Delhi were left at 81 for three.
Iyer was bowled while making room for a big shot while Pant mistimed a hit over midwicket to be caught at third man.
In the 10th over Pant blasted Harbhajan Singh for 2 sixes and a boundary and thus scoring 17 in the same over.
Glenn Maxwell’s disastrous run continued when he saw his stumps disturbed after attempting a reverse sweep off Ravindra Jadeja.
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