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Riding on Shreyas Iyer’s brilliant knock, Delhi Daredevils sealed a two-wicket win vs Gujarat Lions in an IPL 2017 game on Wednesday. Chasing a massive target of 196, DD were reeling at 121/6 but Iyer and Pat Cummins’ quickfire 61-run stand guided the visitors home with two balls to spare. This was DD’s fifth win of the season. Earlier, Aaron Finch’s 39-ball 69 powered GL to 195/5.
The start from Gujarat Lions was circumspect. The first three overs, there was nothing audacious from either Dwayne Smith or Ishan Kishan. A couple of tight overs from Zaheer Khan and one from Mohammed Shami didn’t give Lions much room to go after the bowling, although there was a boundary scored in each of them. They were 21 without loss in three overs before disaster struck, and a part of it was Lions’ doing. Kishan, wanting a single, took off but Smith did not respond on time. He was quick to take off and despite a lethargic throw from Amit Mishra at deep fine-leg Smith was caught wanting and short of his crease. Suresh Raina was going to be the key for Lions but a fiery Pat Cummins, coming round the wicket, dismantled the leg and middle stump of the Lions skipper.
Karthik Finch lead revival of Lions
At 56/3, Gujarat needed some stability, and it was provided by Aaron Finch and Dinesh Karthik, who put on a strokefull 92 off 56 balls. Finch thumped consecutive sixes off Mishra, while Karthik batted in stealth mode collecting three early yet smart boundaries. As Finch and Karthik continued to go strong, Daredevils’ wait for a wicket extended. And with the two batsmen scoring quickly, the DD fielders went under the hammer.
Early setbacks for Delhi in runchase
One of the prime reasons that the Daredevils are out of the race for the Playoffs is their constant failure at the top. And Wednesday against Lions was another example of it. They were reduced to 15/2 in no time with Pradeep Sangwan getting the first breakthrough.
Despite that blemish from Pant, the Daredevils did not learn their lesson. Marlon Samuels and Corey Anderson fell in a span of 10 balls and 12 runs – also run outs which were courtesy two top-notch direct-hits from Ravindra Jadeja. Both took on Jadeja’s arm and perished. He has more run outs in this edition of the IPL than wicket and continues to prove how good an asset he is on the field. Despite all that, one man who kept the Daredevils alive was Shreyas Iyer. Iyer was on a boundary-scoring spree and collected 15 of them and never allowed the required run rate to slip. 13 of his 15 boundaries came off pacers, an indication how wonderfully he was finding the middle of his bat. His knock was what was standing between the Lions and win. In his company, Pat Cummins scored an extremely crucial 13-ball 24 and got the Daredevils close.
