A FINE cocktail of experience and youth delivered to Delhi Daredevils their first victory of the IPL season. The old boys – leg-spinner Amit Mishra, featuring in his 100th IPL match, and captain Zaheer Khan – led the way with the ball, smothering Kings XI Punjab to 111 for 9.The bowlers then ceded the stage to opener Quinton de Kock and Sanju Samson who added 91 together in 64 balls to put Daredevils on course.
Scores: Delhi Daredevils 113 for 2 (de Kock 59*, Samson 33) beat Kings XI Punjab 111 for 9 (Vohra 32, Mishra 4-11) by eight wickets.
When Pawan Negi slugged Paredeep Sahu over the midwicket boundary for a six, halfway into the 14th over, Daredevils had won by eight wickets.
While Zaheer gave his team the early spark after choosing to bowl on what he called a “slow surface”, Mishra pierced through Kings XI’s middle order with dip, turn, and sometimes, even lack of turn.
Mishra had Shaun Marsh stumped off his first ball, then he dismissed David Miller and Glenn Maxwell in the same over and broke the opposition’s spine.
His bowling was envenomed by Daredevils captain Zaheer Khan, placing a slip and at times a short let to capitalise on the nervous batsmen. Daredevils built on the double-strike and sent in six boundary-less overs between the ninth and 14th. It was during this phase that Mishra rattled Manan Vohra’s leg stump with a wrong’ un to claim his fourth wicket in three overs. Zaheer did not call on Mishra to bowl any further.
Kings XI’s struggles were not restricted to spin bowling though. Zaheer, who had conceded he had “tried too much” in the first match against Kolkata Knight Riders, found swing right away yesterday. His first ball moved back in and had the extra bounce to rap M. Vijay high on the pad.
That meant the balls that went on with the angle across the right-hander became all the more effective. Zaheer teased the outside edge regularly in his first spell before coming back to have his reward when Mohit Sharma skied one to Chris Morris at mid-off.
Morris did his part as well with the ball, hustling the opposition with his pace. Off-spinner Jayant Yadav also benefited from the cushion and strung together four quiet overs.
Mohit and Mitchell Johnson, though, swung their bats at the back end to push Kings XI past 100.
Kings XI made life easier for Daredevils in the chase. de Kock was reprieved twice. M. Vijay dropped him at deep square leg on 7, before Wriddhiman Saha botched a stumping chase on 23 in the eighth over
de Kock, who was becalmed in the Powerplay, hit rhythm in the following over, cracking three fours off Axar Patel.
Sanju Samson, who was hiked to No.3, came in at the early fall of Shreyas Iyer – given out caught-behind despite the Snicko picking up nothing – took nine balls to get off the mark.
He manufactured the release when he galloped down the track and put leg-spinner Pardeep Sahu over long-on..(ESPN Cricinfo).