Who would have expected that struggling Delhi Daredevils (DD) would thump Chennai Super Kings (CSK) in a dominating way? The strong determination from the Delhi lads coupled with the hapless batting performance from Super Kings’ batsmen produced a one-sided affair at Feroz Shah Kotla on Friday (May 18) night.
However, the win would’ve lifted the spirit of Daredevils’ players in the dugout while CSK has got one more problem to sort it out before eliminators.
Delhi Daredevils – Vijay Shankar & Harshal Patel pushes Delhi to 162
Initially, it was Mahendra Singh Dhoni, who won the toss and asked the home side to bat first. Justifying the toss, Super Kings’ bowlers started the things in a grand fashion by sending Prithvi Shaw back to the hut in the powerplay overs.
However, it was once again Rishabh Pant and Shreyas Iyer, who took the onus to repair the ship but the comeback Pacer, Lungi Ngidi drew curtains by bagging duo in a single over.
The disastrous Indian Premier League (IPL) season stretched a bit for Maxwell while Vijay Shankar showed his worth as a player.
Harshal Patel seems like enjoying his promotion in the batting department. He took CSK bowlers to the cleaners in order to add some quick runs on the board for CSK.
Patel went on to smash Dwayne Bravo to three sixes in the final over to finish the innings on high with 162 runs on the board.
Ngidi has been the pick of the bowlers with two wickets to his name at the expense of 14 runs in the over while Shardul Thakur, Ravindra Jadeja, and Deepak Chahar grabbed a piece to their name.
Harbhajan Singh has once again been expensive who gave away 24 runs off his two overs.
Chennai Super Kings – Middle-order failure saw CSK on the wrong side
In reply to the chase, Delhi bowlers started the things in a supreme fashion. Though they haven’t grabbed any wicket in the powerplay overs, they managed to restrict the batsmen to the minimum run rate.
However, the struggling Watson perished on the bowling of Amit Mishra.
Ambati Rayudu once again showed his class by smacking a blistering 50 off just 29 balls. But, he failed to carry-on with the momentum as Harshal got the better off him at the crucial moment of the game. Suresh Raina continued his bad form to add vows to CSK in the chase.
Though Dhoni Raina stayed at the crease for a certain period of time, they never got going as Mishra and Sandeep Lammichane were perfect in their execution. The irked Raina played a scoring shot only to find Shankar at deep mid-wicket while Billings showed his weakness to play spin.
Dhoni too failed to knock the ball which saw run-rate touching sky-high. After skipper walked back to the hut, Jadeja struck a couple of strokes but it was never going to be helpful in the chase apart from minimizing the margin of losing.
Harshal and Trent Boult bowled exceptionally in the death to hand CSK a 34-run loss in the run chase of 163.