IPL: Kolkata beat Delhi by 6 wickets; The Daredevils lose 9th consecutive home game

Gautam Gambhir in action during Kolkata’s 6-wicket win over Delhi

Kolkata Knight Riders beat Delhi Daredevils by 6 wickets in the Indian Premier League (IPL) at the Ferozeshah Kotla Stadium in Delhi. Having not won in 8 consecutive home matches, the Daredevils posted a modest total of 146 which was chased down by the Knight Riders with 11 balls to spare.

Gautam Gambhir won the toss and chose to bowl on a dry pitch which had grass cover on it. Morne Morkel got the first breakthrough, taking the wicket of Mayank Agarwal in the 2nd over. After a 19-run stand, captain JP Duminy fell victim to a Sunil Narine delivery when he played the ball on to the stumps. Opener Shreyas Iyer was going great guns at the other end, but needed a partner who could stay with him.

The arrival of Manoj Tiwari helped calm things down for Delhi as they reached 58/2 in 8.3 overs. However, Iyer was sent back to the pavillion by Piyush Chawla off the next ball. The home side kept on losing wickets at regular intervals and they were struggling at 103/5 after 15 overs when Yuvraj Singh and Tiwari departed.

Angelo Mathews hit Narine for 20 runs in the penultimate over to push Delhi towards a decent total, but a brilliant final over by Umesh Yadav, which yielded only 3 runs and 2 wickets put the brakes on Delhi’s innings and gave the defending champions a target of 147. Yadav finished with figures of 4-0-18-2.

Gambhir played a true captain's knock

Kolkata, on their part, raced to 31 runs in 4 overs with Robin Uthappa and Gautam Gambhir, before the former fell to Domnic Joseph. The bowler took the wicket of Manish Pandey as well two balls later to put the pressure back on the visiting side.

Stuttering at 31/2 in 4.4 overs, Gambhir steadied the innings while Suryakumar Yadav tried to increase the run rate by scoring 24 runs in just 16 balls. But, when Nathan Coulter-Nile took the wicket of Yadav, it looked like Delhi were going to put a strong fight to avoid a 9th consecutive loss at home.

Yusuf Pathan, with the help of the brilliant Gambhir, who was playing an anchor role, took the game away from Delhi with a 65-run partnership. With Kolkata needing just 3 runs off 14 balls, Imran Tahir got Gambhir out. The skipper departed having scored 60 runs in 49 balls.

New batsman, Ryan ten Doeschate, scored the winning runs in the 19th over, which meant that Kolkata have got as many points as Chennai Super Kings, but remain behind them in 3rd spot due to an inferior Net Run Rate. Umesh Yadav was given the man of the match award for his brilliant bowling display, but Gambhir ran him close leading from the front with a captain’s knock.