An excellent bowling performance and 70 runs from Shreyas Iyer helped Delhi Daredevils to a six-wicket consolation win over Chennai Super Kings.
The Daredevils are out of the tournament after a poor run saw them lose their previous four games, but this win served as a useful consolation over MS Dhoni’s Chennai Super Kings, who are all but through to the play-offs and will be one of the favourites to win the tournament.
The win was founded on a superb bowling performance, as Chennai, batting first, never really got to grips with a slow and grassy pitch that made strokeplay difficult. However the Delhi attack, led by Zaheer Khan and Shahbaz Nadeem, bowled superbly and limited the Chennai openers to just 16 for one from the first six overs, the third-lowest powerplay score in IPL history.
Brendon McCullum and Dwayne Smith opened the batting, but could only score 11 from 21 balls and 18 from 24 respectively, and despite some game attempts by the likes of Suresh Raina and Faf du Plessis to up their run-rate, the Daredevils always looked in charge.
Dhoni tried to anchor the innings and did manage the odd free, attacking shot but was eventually dismissed by Khan, who got the Chennai skipper to hit an aggressive shot straight up in the air, and a catch was pouched well by Nadeem.
The wily old-stager Khan was superb throughout, and finished with figures of two for nine from his four overs, sending down one maiden. Du Plessis top-scored in Chennai’s total of 119 for six, scoring 29 from 23 balls.
Delhi’s response started a little shakily, with the young South African keeper-batsman Quinton de Kock dismissed by Ishwar Pandey, who had come into the Chennai side for the excellent Ashish Nehra, laid low with flu.
JP Duminy swiftly followed, chopping on to Pandey, but from there the impressive Iyer took command, playing a wonderful innings full of inventive and even cheeky shots, belying his young age to maturely guide his side towards victory.
Yuvraj Singh, not in the best form so far in this tournament, accompanied Iyer for much of his knock, playing an anchoring innings of 32 runs from 28 balls, but he was dismissed going for a big shot as the end came close, Mohit Sharma taking a solid catch off the bowling of Pawan Negi.
Iyer eventually finished on an excellent 70 not out from just 49 balls, an innings that featured 10 fours and a six, and he closed out the chase with a low-key pushed single down the ground.
Chennai still require one win to absolutely guarantee their place in the next phase, but it is tough to see them losing out from this point.
