Delhi had a perfect outing in the first match that they played at their home ground as the Daredevils defeated the defending champions Chennai Super Kings by eight wickets with more than six over to spare. The match that was delayed by some thunderstorm in Delhi saw Virender Sehwag and his team play some extraordinary cricket to outplay one of the best sides in IPL’s history.

The home team bowled first and took the control of the match right from the very first ball and kept the Super Kings under their control till the end of the match.

Hits and flops for Chennai Super Kings

Hits:

R Ashwin: The manner in which Chennai Super Kings lost shows that none of their players did anything worth to write about them. Only R Ashwin can leave Delhi with his head held high as he looked the best bowler in their side. Ashwin got Sehwag out with a good ball and was not expensive.

Flops:

Running between the wickets: Chenai had four run-outs in their innings. They lost the wicket of M Vijay on the very first ball due to some terrific fielding from the Delhi team. Their two most dependable batsmen Suresh Raina and Badrinath also got run-out and the terrible miss-understanding saw the Super Kings struggling at 64-4. Their batsmen were looking under pressure and threw away their wickets looking for some quick singles. It was the run-outs that cost Chennai the match at the end of the day.

MS Dhoni: The captain of the Chennai Super Kings came at a stage when his team needed some runs from him badly. Dhoni played a lot of dot balls as the Chennai’s innings came to a standstill. The first attacking shot that he played resulted in his downfall. Dhoni played 18 balls for his 11 and left his team in disarray.

Ravindra Jadeja: Jadeja was sent in at number five to hold the innings together for the Super Kings. He however, took far too many balls to get settled and took the innings nowhere. He scored only 13 runs and consumed 17 deliveries for it. He was ineffective with the ball as well and had a very bad outing.

Hits and flops for Delhi Daredevils:

Bowling unit: All the Delhi bowlers had a great day in the field as they hunted in packs and never let any Chennai batsmen settle. Irfan Pathan and Morne Morkel opened the proceedings quite beautifully for the Delhi team and put the pressure on opposition right from the first ball. Their two spinners, Shahbaz Nadeem and Roelof van der Merwe, were very impressive with their slow left-arm spinners. They both bowled a terrific spell and never gave the Chennai batsmen an opportunity to free their arms.

Fielding: The thing that made life simpler for the Delhi batsmen was their fielding in the first half of the match. They inflicted four run outs and that was the deciding factor in the match. Apart from the run-outs that they affected, the Delhi fielders saved a lot of runs as well. It was a perfect example from the Delhi boys that fielding can win you games.

Big three coming to party: Delhi’s batting revolves around their three batsmen -- Virender Sehwag, Mahela Jayawardene and Kevin Pietersen. Whenever these three batmen will score together, Daredevils will do well and that is exactly what happened in the match. Sehwag started the proceedings in the manner expected from him and gave away a perfect start for the run-chase. After the fall of Sehwag’s wicket the other two star batsmen took the control of the innings and saw their team home.
Indian Sports News