Mitchell Starc ‘s five-wicket haul and Faf du Plessis’s half-century helped Delhi Capitals beat Sunrisers Hyderabad by 7 wickets in Vizag. Aniket Verma’s brilliant innings went in vain who scored brilliant half century.
Mitchell Starc stopped the batting powerhouse of Sunrisers Hyderabad
Sunrisers Hyderabad captain Pat Cummins won the toss and decided to bat first. For Delhi, its batting superstar KL Rahul made a comeback in this match.
For Sunrisers Hyderabad, both their aggressive batsmen Abhishek Sharma and Travis Head came out to open the innings. Mitchell Starc opens the bowling for Delhi Capitals. Travis Head sent two consecutive balls to the boundary. On the fifth ball, there was a misunderstanding between Travis Head and Abhishek Sharma(1) and Abhishek Sharma was run out by Vipraj Nigam.
Mitchell Starc gave Delhi Capitals a good start by dismissing Ishan Kishan(2) and Nitish Kumar Reddy(0) in his next over. He took his third wicket in the third over of his spell. This time he gave a huge blow to Sunrisers Hyderabad by dismissing the dangerous looking Travis Head(24). After this, as soon as Heinrich Klaasen came to bat, he started with a six and a four on two balls. Hyderabad scored 58 runs with the loss of four wickets at the end of the power play
Counter-attacked innings by Aniket Verma and Klaasen
Aniket Verma hit a four and a six to Vipraj who came to bowl the seventh over and scored 16 runs from this over. In the very next over, Aniket hit two consecutive sixes off two balls of captain Axar Patel. Klaasen and Aniket Verma continued the counter attack and kept the run rate around 10.
Mohit Sharma dismissed Henrich Klaasen. Vipraj Nigam took a brilliant catch of him. Klassen scored 32 runs with the help of two fours and two sixes. Klaasen shared a 77-run partnership in 42 balls with Aniket Verma.
Mitchell Starc ‘s 5 wickets, Aniket Verma’s brilliant half century
Wickets kept falling at one end but Aniket Verma kept his intent clear and did not hold back in hitting fours and sixes. Abhinav Manohar(4) could not do anything special and was out on Kuldeep Yadav’s ball. Aniket Verma completed his half-century in 34 balls by taking a single off Kuldeep Yadav’s ball. This was his first half-century in IPL.
Pat Cummins(2) could not make any impact in this match like the last match and became the victim of Kuldeep Yadav’s ball. Aniket Verma hit two consecutive sixes on two balls of captain Axar Patel who came to bowl the 15th over of the innings. Hyderabad scored 17 runs from this over. Aniket Verma sent Kuldeep Yadav’s ball for 6 runs but on the very next ball, Jake Fraser-McGurk took a brilliant catch and sent him to the pavilion. With this wicket, Sunrisers Hyderabad’s hopes of reaching a big target ended. He scored 74 runs in 41 balls which included 5 fours and 6 sixes
Hyderabad brought in Wiaan Mulder as an impact bowler but he too could not score much. Mitchell Starc came to bowl his last over and took his fourth wicket by dismissing Harshad Patel. Axar Patel displayed brilliant fielding and took a brilliant catch.
Two balls later, Mitchell Starc dismissed Mulder(9) to complete his five-wicket haul. This was his first five-wicket haul in T20 cricket. Hyderabad team could not even play the full 20 overs and was all out after scoring 163 runs in 18.4 overs. For Delhi, Mitchell Starc took 5 wickets for 35 runs in 3.4 overs. Kuldeep Yadav took three wickets for 22 runs in four overs while Mohit Sharma got one wicket.
A great start from du Plessis
Chasing the target of 164 runs, Faf du Plessis and Jake Fraser-McGurk came to open the innings. Both batted cautiously in the first two overs. But Faf du Plessis played some good shots in the third over of Mohammad Shami and scored 15 runs from this over. Fraser got two chances in the fourth and fifth overs, both his catches were very difficult.
Faf played with intent and scored runs without any discomfort but on the other Jake struggled to time the ball. DC scored 52 runs at the end of powerplay without losing any wickets
Faf 50 and Zeeshan impressive debut
Faf completed his 50 runs in 9th over. He completed his milestone in just 26 balls. Zeeshan broke this partnership by dismissing Faf in the 10th over Faf scored 81 runs for the first wicket with McGurk.
Jake tried to show some intent by hitting 2 consecutive fours and a six on the next three balls. Zeeshan caught & bowled Jake Fraser-McGurk on the last ball of the over.
He scored 38 runs in 32 balls.
Stubbs and porel completed the formalities
Kl Rahul came to bat at no 4 and he took on Shami and scored 2 fours and one six and got 18 runs. Zeeshan bowled Rahul and took his third wicket of the day. Rahul scored brisk 15 runs in just 5 balls. After that Stubbs and Abhishek Porel made sure there was no further damage and they both batted comfortably.
Mulder bowled 16th over and Stubbs hit 2 fours and on the final ball Abhishek hit the winning runs and Delhi capitals won this match by 7 wickets with 4 overs to spare. That boosted their net run rate
Zeeshan Ansari bowled an impressive spell and took 3 wickets in 4 overs and spent 42 runs. Apart from him, any other bowler made no contribution.
Mitchell Starc was awarded as Man of the Match.