Rain gods follow RCB once again as DD fail to end season on a high

Opener Quinton de Kock hit a quick 50 for DD

The rain-affected match yesterday between the Royal Challengers Bangalore and the Delhi Daredevils perfectly summed up DD’s performance this season, as nothing seemed to work for them.

Even though they had a few close games, with bowlers Imran Tahir and Zaheer Khan bowling some sublime spells and openers Mayank Agarwal and Shreyas Iyer surprising many with their gritty performances, the 8th edition of IPL was disappointing overall for the Delhi Daredevils, who finished second from the bottom in the points table.

The team and their fans were hoping to sign off on a high, but the rain gods showed no mercy, washing out the second half of the match.

The outcome didn’t really affect the Royal Challengers, who had already qualified for the play-offs, but the match ended up being a damp squib for even the RCB fans who had come out in huge numbers to watch their team play, and had waited till the very end.

JP Duminy leading from the front

Playing at thier home ground, RCB won the toss and captain Virat Kohli chose to field first. The match started off slowly for the Daredevils, but slowly picked up momentum as opener Quinton de Kock came out all guns blazing on the RCB bowlers and hit a quick 69 runs from 34 balls at a strike rate of 176.92

Skipper JP Duminy played a vital role in taking the score towards a decent total with his 67 not out off 43 balls, that included four 4s and three 6s.

He finished the season with an impressive tally of 414 runs from 14 matches, with four 50s and a highest score of 78*. Duminy has impressed fans and experts alike with not just his batting, but also his captaincy skills. His off-spinners also proved to be handy on many occasions; he even managed to pick up four wickets in one of the matches match.

However, it was largely a one-man show for DD through the season; things just didn’t fall in place for them as a team.

Yuvraj and Mathews continue their lean form

Yuvraj Singh’s fans were hoping to see him end the season on a high, but much to their dismay, he could only manage 11 runs off 7 deliveries. And Angelo Mathews, who got run out on 1, continued to disappoint, and would like to forget this edition as soon as possible.

For players of their calibre, this season was seriously underwhelming. As the star players of DD, both Yuvraj and Matthews failed to justify their enormous price tags. The same powerhouse duo had previously failed to perform for Pune Warriors India as well, and their fans would desperately be hoping to see both the players back in form soon.

DD finished with an impressive total of 187 in the match and RCB’s Harshal Patel emerged as the best bowler, finishing with 2 wickets for 30 runs.

When the chase began, all we could manage to witness was one over as the rain started coming down heavily. For a brief moment, there seemed to be the possibility of the game resuming, only for the hopes to be dashed again in a matter of few seconds.

Had RCB chased the total down, they would have finished second in the table, thus giving themselves two chances to make it to the finals. For Delhi though, it was all about collecting two more points as they were already out of the reckoning.

Now that the tournament has ended for them, the Daredevils should try to put this disappointing season behind them, introspect on what went wrong, and work towards reinventing. With names like Duminy, Yuvraj, Matthews, Albie Morkel, Zaheer Khan, Manoj Tiwary, Mohammad Shami, Jaydev Unadkat and Amit Mishra, Delhi have a potential tournament-winning side, and need to transform themselves from a strong team on paper to a strong team on the field.