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Delhi Daredevils dance in the rain
by CricketArchive Staff Reporter


Scorecard:Delhi Daredevils v Kings XI Punjab
Player:V Sehwag, DL Vettori

DateLine: 19th April 2009

 

The stop and start rain-confused contest between Delhi Daredevils and Kings XI Punjab resulted in a pretty facile win for the Delhi outfit, with skipper Virender Sehwag and Gautam Gambhir ensuring that began well and never really were at any risk. They went on to win by ten wickets in a game which promised a lot but saw too many breaks to really get off the ground.

 

The 20-over game was hit by rain from the beginning and it initially was reduced to 14 overs and then 12 and then another shower made it a run and ball equation. Punjab would obviously not be too happy about the way the game panned out but the fact remains that they lost their way while batting, and surely should have scored much more with the kind of start they were given by Ravi Bopara and Karan Goel. The rain played chaos with the match, and Delhi, once showers had stopped them after 1.5 overs of their innings, had a target of 54 runs off 6.1 overs. They had already notched up 24, so essentially, it was 30 runs off 25 balls that Sehwag and Gambhir needed to get and a couple of cracks of Sehwag’s willow ensured that there were no alarms.

 

Punjab began well, with Goel taking to the job of carting the ball all over in earnest, ably supported by Bopara. At one stage, when these two were going hammer and tongs, it looked like Punjab were up for a phenomenal score, till both fell on the same total of 67. The team selection for Delhi was a bit mystifying, since neither Glenn McGrath nor Faraveez Maharoof were in the playing XI. Left-arm fast Dirk Nannes was given the call-up ahead of compatriot McGrath, while Delhi’s Pradeep Sangwan, also a left-armer, Yo Mahesh and the enigmatic Aavishkar Salvi were given the seam-up job, which, with some assistance obviously being afforded on this track, was a shade surprising. But Daniel Vettori’s presence was a given, and how vital he will be to Delhi’s fortunes, he displayed right from the first ball. He is a difficult customer at the best of times and right from the first delivery, which took care of Bopara, he was by far the pick of the bowlers.

 

His third over was a sensation. Yuhttp://cricketarchive.com/cgi-bin-private/add_article.cgivraj hit a six off the second ball and was promptly run out. Mahela Jayawardene holed out off the fifth and the last say Piyush Chawla being run out for a duck. The left-arm spinner returned figures of 3/15 and that could well be crucial. But the rest of the bowling didn’t really back him up, which makes the decision of leaving out both McGrath and Maharoof even stranger. Nannes was erratic, Yo Mahesh was given serious long-handle by Goel while Salvi and Sangwan too were not too steady.

 

Yuvraj would certainly like to get a lot of contributions from his batsmen, since his bowling is surely quite light, especially since Brett Lee and S. Sreesanth are both on the injured list now. However, this performance didn’t do anything to improve their situation, but there is a long way to go.

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