At their home, the Feroz Shah Kotla Stadium in Delhi, the Daredevils could not go past the final hurdle in the final delivery of the match. With his 45 ball 57, Shreyas Iyer kept DD alive in the match till the final ball. Needing 5 to win of the final ball by Mujeeb Ur Rehman, Iyer was successful in making decent contact with the bat but it could not clear the fence and went straight to Aaron Finch. The Kings XI continued their winning run with 5 wins out of 6 and replaced the Chennai Super Kings at the no. 1 position on the points table.
Prior to this Delhi bowlers Liam Plunkett (3/17), Avesh Khan (2/36) and Trent Boult (2/21) restricted the mighty Punjab batting lineup to 143. At the halfway stage, Delhi looked set to win the match.
After the initial hick ups Shreyas Iyer and Rahul Tewatia (24 runs) did well to keep Delhi in the hunt and reached near the target. But a couple of quick wickets in the end and Iyer’s failed attempt to clear the fence in the last ball of the match meant Delhi could only gather 139 runs for the loss of 8 wickets after 20 overs were bowled, losing the game to Punjab by 4 runs.
For the Kings XI, Ankit Rajput, who was adjudged the Player of the Match, picked up 2 wickets for 23 runs. Andrew Tye and Mujeeb Ur Rehman also chipped in with 2 wickets each. Barinder Sran picked up a wicket and bowled an economical penultimate over of the match.
With this win, Punjab move on to 10 points and lead the points table, while Delhi’s 5th defeat in 6 games implies tough times ahead for the Delhi Daredevils.
On the other hand, a win without Chris Gayle will give even more confidence to the Punjab squad, who look really good on the points tally now.
