The spotlight was firmly on Kevin Pietersen’s much anticipated return to competitive cricket, but Sunrisers Hyderabad batsmen stole the show in the first of the Indian Premier League double-header at Dubai International Stadium this evening.
The former England star Pietersen was disappointing, making 16 runs in 17 balls, as his side, Delhi Daredevils lost a high-scoring encounter by four runs.
Hyderabad captain Shikhar Dhawan won the toss and decided to bat first and they went on to post an imposing total of 184-1 in their 20 overs.
In reply, Daredevils were always in the hunt with their opening pair of Quinton de Kock and Murali Vijay putting up an opening stand of 99 in 11.2 overs.
But once they both departed in quick succession, immediately followed by a couple of miserly overs from the spinners, it was always going to be tough to chase down the target.
Delhi ended on 180-4 and have now dropped to the seventh position in the eight-team tournament with three losses in their first four matches.
For Hyderabad it was the first win of the campaign, having lost their previous two matches to Rajasthan Royals and Kings XI Punjab.
In Dhawan, and the Aussie duo of Aaron Finch and David Warner, Hyderabad have perhaps one of the most destructive top-orders in the tournament.
Given the poor show by the batsmen, Dhawan decided to strengthen the batting, opting for Naman Ojha instead of Irfan Pathan.
Ojha wasn’t required to wield his bat, as Dhawan and Finch first added 56 runs for the opening stand in 6.2 overs, and then Warner took over from the skipper and produced a superb, unbeaten partnership of 128 with Finch.
The powerfully-built Finch top-scored with 88 in just 53 balls, finishing the innings with what turned out to be a significant six off Jadhav Unadkat’s final ball.
Apart from their own top-three, Hyderabad should also be thanking Delhi’s Manoj Tiwary for dropping two straight-forward chances, with the first mistake coming when he dropped Dhawan for 26 at point off Wayne Parnell.
The Hyderabad skipper seemed to be getting into the groove for the first time in a long time, and had just smashed two fours and a six in the previous three balls.
That did not turn out to be very costly as Dhawan departed 10 runs later, flicking left-arm spinner Shahbaz Nadeem straight into the hands of Pietersen at fine-leg.
The second drop proved quite destructive for Delhi and it was Parnell who suffered again as Tiwary dropped a miscued Warner shot at point in the 16th over with the score reading 127-1 and Warner on 31.
Thereafter, the two batsmen added 57 runs in the remaining 24 balls.
In reply, Delhi seem to be chugging along at a nice pace with the innovative de Kock and the classy Vijay milking the bowling.
The fall of de Kock (48 in 30 balls), caught in the deep by Finch off the impressive leg-spinner Karn Sharma, brought in Pietersen, but the superstar looked rusty as he took five balls to open his innings and made his 11 of his 16 runs in his final three of the 17 deliveries he faced.
The most crucial stage of the Delhi innings was when the two openers fell within the space of one over, and the 14th and 15th overs bowled by Amit Mishra and Sharma, which yielded just nine runs.
Amidst all the carnage caused by the batsmen, two young Indian spinners stood out – Delhi’s Nadeem, who gave away just 24 runs and picked up a wicket, and Hyderabad’s Sharma, who finished 1-23.
