The Delhi Daredevils aren’t the same team like last year. Despite having players of high repute, they seem to be losing their way more often than not. After winning back-to-back matches, the Daredevils lost their way once again.
This time against the Kolkata Knight Riders, in front of their home crowd, at the Feroz Shah Kotla on Monday. This was Delhi’s ninth consecutive loss at home. There wasn’t any demon on the pitch, but still Delhi couldn’t get a good start to the innings.
They lost wickets at regular intervals and there wasn’t a big partnership that could have bailed their team out of trouble. Opener Shreyas Iyer and Manoj Tiwary tried to resurrect the Delhi innings, but they didn’t produce the kind of knock you will expect from a T20 batsmen.
Even Yuvraj got off to a good start, but he could only collect 21. Towards the end, it was Angelo Mathews who took the attack to the opposition and took the score to some respectable total of 146 for eight.
For KKR, Umesh Yadav produced the best spell of the match. He was quick, accurate and also took wickets for his team. Even Morne Morkel and Piyush Chawla complimented him well, but none of them could match Yadav. He seemed to be getting better with every IPL game and was awarded the man of the match.
And with the bat, it was again KKR skipper Gautam Gambhir who did the rest. In fact, he anchored the KKR innings beautifully. The fact that he is a Delhiite he knew the Kotla pitch well and he batted accordingly. He was never in a great hurry to finish the match.
It was left for Yusuf Pathan, who played a strokeful 40 to finish off things in style. Somewhere in the middle of the KKR chase, even Suryakumar Yadav too played a cameo for his team. This was KKR’s third win from four outings while Delhi have two wins from five outings.
