Kings XI Punjab registered another scintillating win and this time in an away game against Delhi Daredevils. It was David Miller and Mandeep Singh who batted really well to handover this five-wicket victory to Kings XI Punjab. Miller scored 34 runs while Mandeep contributed valuable 24 to the team’s total. Along with that, came in some great bowling performances from Harmeet Singh and Praveen Kumar who picked up five wickets amongst them to restrict this power-packed bating line up to just 120 runs in their 20 overs.
Here we bring to you the hits and flops of the match between Kings XI Punjab and Delhi Daredevils.
Hits
Harmeet Singh: Harmeet Singh is back with the bang. He has the ability to restrict the batsmen with his short-balls and slow bouncers which he used it quite well. He got the big wicket of Virender Sehwag in his first over and after that he dismissed Manprit Juneja and Kedar Jadhav. He ended up with the figures of 3/18 in his four overs.
David Warner: Warner was trying his level best to reconstruct the innings but he kept running out of partners at the other end. He scored 40 runs off 36 balls and was looking good as he hit four fours and one six, but inability of other batsmen to apply themselves didn’t allow him to free his arms.
David Miller: Miller once again played a sensible knock and batted till the last ball to lead his side to a comfortable victory. He scored 34 off 39 balls and showed his brilliant temperament. A player like him is very much needed in middle-order and he is a treat to watch when he bats like this.
Praveen Kumar: Praveen was once again brilliant with the ball and gave that early breakthrough in the form of Mahela Jayawardene. He bowled a perfect Yorker to David Warner to get him out at very crucial time. His bowling at death wasn’t impressive till now but after this performance he would be happy that he executed his Yorkers and short-balls quite effectively.
David Hussey: Hussey was in action with bat as well as with the bowl. He played a crucial innings of 20 runs off 21 balls and brought his team quite close to victory. Earlier in the evening, he bowled his four overs and gave away just 14 runs. He ran through his overs very quickly which created serious pressure on Delhi Daredevils.
Mandeep Singh: Mandeep Singh is getting better and better with every innings. He scored five boundaries in his knock of 24 runs which gave his team a dream start in first three overs of the innings with his crisp shots which were played down the ground. He just needs to bat up till 10th over and then he can be as dangerous as Adam Gilchrist.
Virender Sehwag: Sehwag played another blistering innings but he didn’t stay at the crease for too long and departed after scoring 23 runs. He scored two fours and one six in his stay of 21 balls. He needs to bat atleast till first 10 overs otherwise DD stand no chance against any opposition.
Flops
Umesh Yadav: Yadav has been performing quite inconsistently this season and against Punjab he continued his streak of remaining wicket-less. He gave away 19 runs in his three overs and wasn’t looking lethal enough to take a wicket.
Mahela Jayawardene: Jayawardene departed after scoring just four runs in the very first over of the match which put considerable amount of pressure on Virender Sehwag. He sent Roelof van der Merwe instead of David Warner at number three which back-fired. It was looking as if he was trying too much with team combinations and the worst of all decision was to play Andre Russell instead of Shahbaz Nadeem.
Ashish Nehra: Nehra started off badly as he went for 14 runs in his first over and kept bowling those length deliveries which Miller was simply pulling it away for singles and doubles.
Piyush Chawla: He gave away 17 runs in his two overs. Chawla started off well but as soon as he went for first six he gave away some more easy runs to Delhi Daredevils. Kings XI should try and bring any other spinner for atleast two to three matches to see how well he can bowl in tandem.
By Amit Chopra
Indian Sports News Network
