Royal Challengers Bangalore captain Daniel Vettori led from the front to guide his team to victory in their IPL tie against Delhi Daredevils at the Ferozeshah Kotla in New Delhi. Vettori held his nerve and played a valiant innings of 18 runs to chase down the Daredevils’ score of 160. Morne Morkel bagged two quick wickets in the form of Saurabh Tiwary and Abhimanyu Mithun at a crucial stage of the match, as the Challengers were in a comfortable position.
Cheteshwar Pujara’s again failed to score as he played a short into the hands of David Warner at the square-leg boundary off a Yogesh Nagar ball. Royal Challengers’ lost AB de Villiers and Virat Kohli in quick succession when both the batsmen were going strong and hitting the ball well. AB de Villiers was run out by a super piece of fielding by David Warner, who ran in from the outfield to get a direct hit on the stumps. In-form Virat Kohli scored a fluent half century and looked to carry on after Chris Gayle’s dismissal, but was bowled by a quick delivery by Morne Morkel.
Ashok Dinda gave the Daredevils the first breakthrough in form of Dilshan, when he went for the pull shot off a short delivery but eventually got a top edge which went high in the air and landed into wicketkeeper Naman Ojha’s safe hands behind the stumps. After the fall of Dilshan, Virat Kohli and Chris Gayle steadied the Royal Challengers innings keeping their team in the hunt.
Earlier, James Hopes scored a valuable half-century to enable Delhi Daredevils post a challenging 160 for six against Royal Challengers Bangalore at the Ferozeshah Kotla. Hopes made vital 54 runs off 43 balls during which he hit seven fours to steer the Delhi innings after captain Virender Sehwag (25) and David Warner (7) fell early. Y Venugopal Rao (24), Naman Ojha (16) and Irfan Pathan (13 not out) also made useful contributions with the bat to guide Delhi to a decent score.
Young right-arm pacer Abhimanyu Mithun was the pick of the bowlers for the Bangalore outfit with figures of two for 37 while Zaheer Khan (1/27), Sreenath Arvind (1/30) and skipper Daniel Vettori (1/25) scalped wicket apiece. Sent into bat, Daredevils were off to a shaky start as they lost both their openers inside the first seven overs. David Warner was the first to depart, cleaned by Zaheer Khan with an in-swinging delivery as he went for a booming drive.
Daredevils captain Sehwag too failed to make much of an impact in front of the home crowd as he was run out in pursuit of a tight single with the scoreboard reading 43 for two. Australian James Hopes, however, was in an attacking mood as he hit Chris Gayle for back-to-back boundaries in his first over. But Daredevils’ problems were further compounded when Abhimanyu Mithun disturbed Mathew Wade’s timbers. James Hopes and Y Venugopal Rao then joined hands and not only steadied the Delhi innings, but also upped the tempo with some lusty shots.
The duo took the attack to the opposition and sent the bad deliveries to its logical conclusion to bring up Delhi’s 100 in 13.2 overs. But just when it was time to accelerate, Venugopal Rao departed bowled by Vettori in the first delivery of the 16th over. The pair put on 47 runs off 38 balls for the fourth wicket. New man in Naman Ojha, however, made his intentions clear from the onset as after playing three dot balls, he clobbered Vettori over the long-off boundary for the second six of Delhi innings.
BRIEF SCORES:
Royal Challengers Bangalore 161 for 7 (Kohli 56, M Morkel 3-25) v Delhi Daredevils 160 for 6 (Hopes 54, Mithun 2-37)
Vettori leads from front as Bangalore clinch thriller
