Delhi Daredevils register their 2^nd win

            Delhi Daredevils won the ‘Battle of Minnows’ as they defeated Pune Warriors India by 15 runs in a Pepsi Indian Premier League match on 29^th April, 2013 at Shahid Veer Narayan Singh International Stadium in Raipur, which is the second home ground for DD. This was Daredevils’ second win in nine matches and they climbed a place higher from their last spot to be placed eighth in the nine-team table. The win also technically kept them in the hunt for a place in the knock-outs. The Warriors, who have had an equally disastrous campaign, now languish at the bottom after their seventh defeat.

            Winning the toss, Pune decided to chase and put Delhi into bat first. DD put up a good total of 164 for the loss of 5 wickets in 20 overs with David Warner assaulting the Pune Warriors’ bowlers in a brutal fashion as he scored an unbeaten 51 in just 25 balls. Warner along with Kedar Jadhav (25 from 19 balls) added 63 runs for the fifth wicket. Warner hit 4 fours and 4 huge sixes with 21 runs coming off the penultimate over bowled by Kane Richardson.  In fact, three of his four sixes were hit off Richardson. The last five overs yielded 63 runs. Warner, who is Daredevils’ highest scorer in the league scored his third half century despite coming in to bat at number four.

            The skipper Mahela Jayawardene (12) failed yet again but Virender Sehwag was watchful during the Powerplay overs before he opened up. Sehwag hit 2 fours and 2 sixes and just when it looked that the opener is getting into the groove for a big score, he failed to read a slower bouncer from Dinda as he committed early to a pull shot to be caught by Robin Uthappa behind the stumps. Sehwag made 28 from 26 balls. Unmukt Chand, drafted in place of Manpreet Juneja could add only 17 to the total after facing 19 deliveries before Rahul Sharma got him caught behind. Ben Rohrer (13) was caught by Uthappa to complete his third catch of the match off Abhishek Nayar’s bowling. Irfan Pathan struck a four off the only ball that he got to play.

            Needing 165 to win, Warriors could manage only 149 for four despite a 76-run opening partnership between Aaron Finch (37) and Uthappa (37). At the halfway stage, Warriors had knocked off 75 runs before Irfan provided with twin strikes in the 11^th over. Pathan got Uthappa caught at deep backward square leg with Chand taking a fine catch and four deliveries later, made Finch to get a faint edge down the leg-side which was collected by Jadhav. Yuvraj Singh and Luke Wright added 50 runs in 6 overs before both got out in quick seccession to change the course of the match. Umesh Yadav bowled a brilliant 18^th over in which he dismissed Yuvraj for 31 and Wright for 19, giving away just 2 runs. DD won by 15 runs and David Warner was declared the Man of the Match.