Dinesh Karthik led Delhi Daredevils defeated Kolkata Knight Riders by 4 wickets and 3 balls to spare at Dubai International Cricket Stadium in the Match 06 of IPL 2014. It was a close match and Delhi’s new catch J P Duminy played a fantastic innings of 52 runs in just 35 balls to secure the much needed victory for his team.
Earlier KKR captain Gautam Gambhir won the toss and elected to bat first as the surface was looking quite good for batting. But his decision back fired when Delhi’s Mohammed Shami took the important wicket of Jacques Kallis for 0 and that too in the very first over. Even the captain Gambhir (0 runs) himself failed to deliver and lost his wicket to Nathan Coulter-Nile in the next over. Kolkata Knight Riders were tied down to only 27/2 at the end of first 5 overs of their innings.
After that KKR’s young lad Manish Pandey (48 runs in 42 balls) build a stable partnership of 64 runs along with Robin Uthappa (55 runs in 41 balls). After Pandey’s sudden dismissal at the 11th over all-rounder Shakib Al Hasan (30 not out) joined the party and helped Uthappa to accelerate the tempo of scoring. Finally KKR managed to score 166/5 in their 20 overs. In the mean time Uthappa got his 9th IPL fifty.
Nathan Coulter-Nile was the most highlighted bowler from Delhi side for his mind blowing bowling figure of 4-0-27-2. Mohammed Shami, Shahbaz Nadeem and Jaydev Unadkat shared one wicket each for their team.
While chasing down KKR’s total, Delhi lost their opening batsman Murli Vijay (0 runs) at the very first over due to good work at the field by Manish Pandey. The other opener Mayank Agarwal played a few good shots and made a quick 26 runs from just 14 balls before being caught by Piyush Chawla on Morkel’s bowl. At the end of first five overs Delhi were at 43/2.
Karthik was playing with ease and eventually he made 56 runs from 40 bowls while hitting 5 boundaries and 2 big sixes. He helped Delhi to remain at 84/3 after first 10 overs. After Taylor’s dismissal in the hands of Kallis, J P Duminy came to the party and formed a 50-run partnership with the captain Karthik.
Duminy hit 2 big sixes in 18th over bowled by Morne Morkel (2 wickets), and he also kept his cool under pressure till the last over to fetch a much needed win for his team. He smashed another six in Chawla’s last over (20th) to finish the game. Sunil Narine yet again bowled superbly and also produced an awesome bowling figure of 4-0-18-1, but his performance went in vain due to Duminy’s quick fifty.
J P Duminy was chosen as the Man of the Match for his amazing batting performance. He was certainly one of the key players to watch for in the Pepsi IPL 2014. Delhi Daredevils finally managed to end their 7-match
losing streak in IPL. Click to
read about who got Yes Bank Maximum Sixes, Kanna keep calm & Man of the Match award in this match.