Sunrisers wilt in the heat of Devil Duminy

Sport360 staff 06:21 19/04/2015
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  • Follow me: Delhi captain JP Duminy.

    JP Duminy led from the front as Delhi Daredevils held their nerve to eke out a narrow four-run win against Sunrisers Hyderabad in Visakhapatnam last night.

    The Daredevils captain first struck a fluent 54 from 41 deliveries to take his team to 167 for four in the allotted 20 overs. He then returned to knock the wind out of Hyderabad’s sails as he snared four wickets for 17 runs from just three overs to take Delhi home in a pulsating encounter.

    Delhi decided to bat first on a deck that offered variable bounce. The Sunrisers gave South African quick Dale Steyn his first game of this IPL, but it was seamer Bhuvneshwar Kumar who struck when he had Mayank Agarwal caught at slip in the third over.

    After the early setback, Shreyas Iyer and Duminy dug themselves in and added 78 runs from 9.2 overs, with Iyer making 60 from 40 balls and reaching his half-century with a couple of sixes off leg-spinner Karn Sharma.

    However, Iyer tried one shot too many and was deceived by a Praveen Kumar slower one to be caught.

    Duminy, meanwhile, went on to reach his half century 50, pulling Steyn for six, but was later bowled in the same 16th over as he shuffled outside the off stump and attempted a scoop.

    The very next delivery, bowled by Ashish Reddy, saw star batsman Yuvraj Singh caught by Sunrisers captain David Warner following a spectacular effort at the midwicket boundary. Those wickets pegged Delhi back as they had to settle for a score which seemed 20 runs below par.

    During the chase, openers Warner and Shikhar Dhawan began cautiously, with the first boundary arriving only in the fifth over.

    However, there were seven hits to the fence in the two overs following that as the opening stand blazed to 50. But the spin of Duminy turned the match on its head.

    The Delhi captain first castled southpaw Dhawan and then three balls later, had Warner caught and bowled to bring his team back into the match.

    The Sunrisers continued to lose wickets regularly and their last big hope, in the form of Ravi Bopara, was quashed when the England allrounder was caught at the boundary off Duminy’s bowling for 41.

    Spirited hitting lower down the order by bowlers Reddy and Karn took them to the final over needing 10 runs to win. But pace bowler Nathan Coulter-Nile kept his cool to ensure victory.

    Man-of-the-match Duminy was over the moon after a morale-boosting effort.

    “Unbelievable, what an entertaining game. To have had an impact like that on a game, it’s a blessed thing. I am proud of the boys about how they stuck to their gameplan,” he said.

    “You’re never out of the game in T20, that’s what I tell the boys. Make sure you concentrate on every ball of the game. We always went for our wickets and that was the key. We will enjoy the two wins on the trot and play again in two days time.”

    On his own bowling, Duminy said the presence of left-handed batsmen at the top of the order made him open the innings with the ball. He said: “They had a few left-handers, and we wanted to try and strike up front with off-spin.”

    However, Duminy said the team’s batting needed a bit more work as the batsmen failed to capitalise on the foundation and fell short of the intended total.

    “Even though anything over 160 was a bonus, we should have scored a bit more,” Duminy added. 

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