Jos Buttler threatened to end Delhi Daredevils' campaign in the 11th season of IPL prematurely but the host managed to survive his assault to live and fight another day with a four-run victory (DLS) at the Ferozeshah Kotla here on Wednesday.
Scorecard and ball-by-ball details
It took an inspired bowling from veteran Amit Mishra, and some not-so-quick work behind the stumps by Rishabh Pant, to stump the Englishman who smashed 67 runs in just 26 balls.
RR, chasing a stiff 151-run target in 12 overs, faltered towards the end of the chase despite a blazing start from Buttler, who scored 67 of the 82 runs in the opening-wicket partnership with D'Arcy Short. Once he fell, however, the rest of the batting simply failed to provide the acceleration needed.
Earlier, Delhi Daredevils raked up 196 for six wickets in 17.1 overs – the game reduced to 18-overs a side after the start was delayed by 1.5 hours by an initial spell of downpour – when covers were rushed in for a second time even as the umpires waited for a decision review. It finally went in favour of RR, Glenn Maxwell adjudged out leg-before off Jofra Archer.
By then, DD had taken control, its youngsters bringing all their aggression and attitude to the fore after being asked to bat. It got its best start of the season (62 for one in six overs) despite Colin Munro going for a duck in the very first over. But Prithvi Shaw, Shreyas Iyer and Pant couldn't care less. Shaw, specially, was in imperious form, making full use of a life after being dropped by Dhawal Kulkarni on 18 off his own bowling in the third over – after slamming 16 runs.
But the man of the moment was Pant. He played the conventional shots, he improvised to play an IPL version of the scoop, slammed the ball for six over wicketkeeper's head, hit on the on-side and on the off and even his mishits raced to the ropes. His 69 came in just 29 balls and, together with captain Shreyas Iyer, added 92 runs.
Iyer, at the other end, was in no mood to play second fiddle and got his own 50 that included the biggest six of the innings, off Gowtham, that saw the ball disappearing outside the stands at deep mid-wicket. The two fell in one over – Jaydev Unadkat finally redeeming himself, failing to read the slower deliveries to be caught in the deep. Vijay Shankar kept the scoring rate up and DD appeared well set to cross 200 before the rain interruption.
For a team placed at the bottom, DD now inexplicably has both the orange cap (top run scorer) and purple cap (most wicket-taker) holders. It will need a lot more from the rest of its squad.
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