Delhi Daredevils banged Pune Warriors India by 15 runs in the Pepsi Indian Premier League season six at the swanky Veer Narayana Singh stadium in Raipur on 28th April Sunday.
Delhi Daredevils scorecard bore a close similarity to their 2013 campaign for nearly the total of the first innings, precisely during 18 overs in the Indian Premier League season six—plenty of starts but advanced absolutely nowhere. Openers Virender Sehwag and Mahela Jayawardene scored 12 and 28 respectively before abandoning the pitch. Unmukt Chand scored 17 and Ben Rohrer 13 among the others.
David Warner and Kedhar Jadhav continued the Delhi battle scoring 36 and 10 respectively.Delhi rated 130 for 4 with only 12 balls remaining at the end of their innings. Pune Warriors India were hardly worried about this target.
Pune commenced the proceedings with Captain Aaron Finch who tossed the ball to fellow Aussie and IPL debutant Kane Richardson. In order to keep things ahead, fast bowler Richardson bowled a full length ball on this fresh pitch of Chhattisgarh International Stadium. A swift Jadhav reached half way down the track and struck it over the bowler's head scoring a six before it could bounce.
An inexperienced novice, who failed to learn from his previous mistakes,Richardson bowled a similar length to Warner in the third ball of the over who again blasted the ball. He cleared his front foot and knocked the ball into the sightscreen. He scored 44 after haring back for two from the next delivery and waited for the final ball of an already rewarding over.
Richardson committed the same mistake of bowling length for the third time in the over which awarded a half century to Warner after the ball cleared the long, straight boundary for the third time. All of a sudden, Delhi climbed from 130 to 151. They were anticipating to get 13 more from the final over which were not at all necessary. Slowly and steadily Pune reached 165. They scored 75/0 at the end of 10th over. Both the openers, Robin Uthappa and Finch consumed 33 balls each fell in the next over by the delivery of Irfan Pathan. This had set the stage for the final dash.
Pune needed 37 runs from the final 18 balls. Yuvraj Singh and Luke Wright were battling at the pitch. Delhi captain Mahela Jayawardene utilized his options and and attempted to finish off Umesh Yadav's spell. His attempt could well have backfired on Jayawardene as the pace coming nicely on to the bats of two men quite used to hitting the hide off the ball. Yadav proved just how invaluable experience actually was in the next six balls.
Unlike Richardson, Yadav took the issue in his own hands by bowling full and fast. The first one trapped Wright in knots. The second one was dug out by the England all-rounder. Yadav rolled his fingers to a slower ball after pushing him deep in the crease. Unfortunately Wright mistimed into long-off Warner's hands.
Yuvraj was now on strike with the batsmen having crossed over before the catch. He pulled the first Yadav ball grandly enough towards the midwicket ropes. Warner dived to award Yuvraj and Pune two runs less than they would have settled for. It was two runs more than Yuvraj would score for the rest of the innings. He missed one bouncer and top-edging the next down deep square-leg's throat. Yadav had granted only two from his final over.Delhi won their second by 15 runs.
