It was a great day at Feroshah Kotla, Delhi. A consolidated bowling act, trailed by a rankling thump from Jonny Bairstow helped Sunrisers Hyderabad beat Delhi Capitals by five wickets on a drowsy track at the Feroz Shah Kotla on Thursday. With two taken care of, Hyderabad presently sit at top of the table based on a prevalent Net Run Rate.
Requested to bat, Delhi batsmen battled big time against Hyderabad’s quality bowling on a pitch that wasn’t anything but difficult to bat on. Shreyas Iyer and Axar Patel attempted their best however, all Delhi could oversee in their 20 overs were 129 runs, to the detriment of eight wickets.
In reply, Bairstow smacked 48 in just 28 deliveries, studded with nine fours and a six, to give Hyderabad a solid platform. The visiting team then lost wickets in clusters but lack of runs meant Delhi could never challenge Hyderabad, who finished on 131 for 5 in 18.3 overs.
Earlier, Prithvi Shaw (11) started the proceedings with a boundary through the cover region but it didn’t take much time for Bhuvneshwar Kumar to get his line and length right. The right-arm seamer, who has struggled in the last couple of games, knocked over Shaw with a traditional off-cutter, picking up his first wicket of the season. Shaw didn’t read the delivery and played an ugly across the line, only to see the off-stump cartwheeling.
Both Bhuvneshwar and Mohammad Nabi kept Shikhar Dhawan and Shreyas Iyer quite for the first four overs, giving them nothing to capitalise on. Iyer broke the shackles by lofting Siddarth Kaul for a maximum over long on before Dhawan managed to sweep Nabi for his first boundary. The willy offspinner, however, forced Dhawan to play a similar shot and had him caught at short fine leg. The left-handed opener looked far from his best and could only manage 12 runs against his former team.
Having been reduced to 36 for 2 at the end of six overs, Delhi needed some stability, something you don’t associate Rishabh Pant with. The left-handed dasher waited for a couple of deliveries before throwing his bat off Nabi’s bowling, only to offer a simple catch to the long-off fielder. While Iyer was operating smartly from one end, Delhi kept losing wickets from the other end.
There was hardly any contribution from Rahul Tewatia (5) and Colin Ingram (5) as Delhi lost their five wickets with just 75 runs on the board. Iyer found the fence a couple of times but the moment he tried to up the ante, the Delhi skipper was knocked over by Rashid Khan’s googly. Iyer hit three fours and a six in his 41-ball 43 but couldn’t take Delhi close to that 150-run mark.
