The Indian Premier League!: Match-14 DD vs SRH, Feroz Shah Kotla, Delhi

MATCH-14

DD vs SRH

Venue- Feroz Shah Kotla Stadium, Delhi
Match Officials- S.Das, A.Dar, C.Shamsuddin,(Umpires), A.Pycroft(Refree)

Toss- DD won the toss and chose to bat first!

Result- SRH won by 3 wickets and 4 balls to spare!

Man Of The Match- RAHUL DRAVID

Match Report-

DD wanted a win badly after 3 losses. Good news for them was, their icon player Sehwag was fit and ready to go again. Jayawardene won the toss for the first time in IPL-6 and chose to bat first. DD had a horrible start with Warner getting out on 3rd ball of the match on a duck. The Indo-Lankan duo of Viru and Mahela, steadied the things, but perished on consecutive balls in the 5th over of the innings bolwled by Ishant Sharma. They couldn't quite recover from those blows, they kept loosing wicket and the run rate just couldn't get better. Coming 5th down after I.Pathan and Botha, Kedar Jadhav (proper weeket-keeper batsman) played some good shots in the end. He and Pathan made sure that the home team went pass the 100 runs mark. DD managed to score 114/8 in 20 overs, Jadhav remained not out on 30(20)!

It looked as if, it was just a matter of 15 overs for SRH to reach the target. But the Veteran captain Mahela Jayawardene had some other plans. His bowlers responded to his plans. At one stage after 6 overs SRH were cruising at 38/1. DD's captain introduced spin at both ends, and that did the SRH batsmen. The wicket slowed down and assisted the spinners. When White lost his wicket in 14th over, SRH were 69/4! Aashish Reddy came in after the dismissal of well set Vihari in very next over, and started hitting fearlessly. DD's ace bowler Morkel was given the responsibility to bowl the 17th over (last over of his spell), on first ball he bowled Aashish Reddy, equation for SRH was 26 from 23 balls. Morkel gave 8 runs in that over, followed by Irfan Pathan's 6 runs over which included a wicket of dangerous Thisara Perera. So SRH required 12 runs off final 2 overs. Dale Steyn and Amit Mishra were on the crease. Umesh Yadav conceded 6 in 19th and in the last over, Steyn hit Irfan for a couple followed by a boundary to defeat DD! Amit Mishra was named Man Of The Match for his all-round performance. He bowled a tremendous spell, 1/15 in his 4 overs and also batted very well when needed [16(14)].

My Views-

This match went down to the wire because of the one ball that turned and bounced for Nadeem, I guess. That created a panic in SRH dug-out. They were not sure if they should attack or just keep ticking away with the singles. In the end Amit Mishra and Steyn made sure that they didn't lose. This loss makes things difficult for DD. They will have to win 9 off their remaining 12 matches to go through to the play-offs. Surely the SRH, have came out as dark horses in this season of IPL so far. They will like to continue their form and they will try to win the game in more convincing manner!

Highlights Of Match in Photos---