With the change in their coaching staff and newly appointed captain (Zaheer Khan) Delhi Daredevils franchise must have thought that this year’s IPL will bring lot of joy for their fans but it didn’t look from their performance. They started it quite positively; both the openers were looking in a good knick but couldn’t capitalized on the start and lost their plot after couple of overs. Samson did try to steady the ship for a while but just like the last season failed to make it count. Meanwhile all the Kolkata Knight Riders bowlers were probing to be too good for the Delhi Daredevils batters especially Russell and Hastings after that spinners have joined them in the party. The duo of Hogg and Chawla end up with the combined figures of 8-1-40-5. At the end they could only manage a mere total of 98 runs on the board which was never going to be enough against the KKR batting line-up. Knight Riders openers started the chase in best possible way Gambhir and Uthappa both of them hit quite a few gorgeous shots especially Uthappa who was quite severe on Daredevils bowlers hit couple of glorious punches back past the bowler. Captain Gautam Gambhir have also played a sensible inning of 38 runs off 41 deliveries and made sure that he was there till the end. Andre Russell was adjudged Man of the match for his excellent bowling figures of 3-0-24-3, it was Russell’s best bowling figure in IPL Cricket. Delhi Daredevils management and coaching staff need to re-access their strategy for rest of the tournament before it gets too late for them.
Posted by : Athar/CricBol