Delhi Daredevils took the field on their home turf of the Feroz Shah Kotla to salvage some pride against a strong, in-form Rising Pune Supergiant side. Delhi gave their loyal fan base something to cheer about as they went on to beat one of the deadliest teams this season by seven runs.
Delhi won the toss and surprisingly decided to bat first on a flat deck which slowed down as the game progressed.
After losing two crucial batsmen in Sanju Samson and Shreyas Iyer early, Karun Nair helped Delhi stabilise the innings firstly along with Rishabh Pant and then with Marlon Samuels. Nair played a sensible knock of 64 runs off 45 balls which helped Delhi reach 168. However, the spotlight belonged to the stupendous fielding efforts by the Pune players as they grabbed on to three spectacular catches over the course of the 20 overs.
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Pune began the chase in the worst possible manner as Ajinkya Rahane was clean bowled by Zaheer Khan on the very first ball of the first over. Steve Smith and Manoj Tiwary then shouldered the responsibility to take Pune home, however, Smith was dismissed by Shahbaz Nadeem.
Stokes then arrived at the crease and smashed his way to 33 and it was his wicket that proved to be the turning point in the game as a short collapse at the end proved to be the wrong doing for the Supergiant.
Without further ado, let's delve into the five things that went wrong for the Rising Pune Supergiant in their last over defeat to the Delhi Daredevils:
#1 Failed to capitalise on early breakthroughs
After Delhi decided to bat first, the onus was on their batsmen to provide a solid start for the team. But Samson failed tonight as he was run out by a stunning Ben Stokes throw from short cover. The fact that he had just one stump to aim at made it that much more special. Iyer soon followed suit as he nicked one from Jaydev Unadkat to hand a simple catch to MS Dhoni.
With the score at 9/2, Pune should have tried harder to stop the flow of runs and set the field aggressively to try and take more wickets. But they failed in their execution as first Rishabh Pant and then Karun Nair showed maturity in building brilliant partnerships which helped Delhi recover from the early blows.
#2 Costly Jaydev Unadkat over at the death
After 17 overs, Delhi were 141 for 6 with Karun Nair struggling to hit boundaries in the slog overs. He had last hit a boundary in the eighth over. However, Unadkat came on to bowl and gave away 19 runs in an over which ruined his rather brilliant time on the field. He gave away just 10 runs in the three other overs and also picked up a stunning catch to dismiss Nair in the 19th over.
When he came on to bowl the 18th over, Nair first hit a four through the point region and then Amit Mishra slammed him for a six over long off. On the final ball, Nair again hit a four as a short of a length delivery was dispatched to the mid-wicket boundary. A 19-run over at this stage helped Delhi reach a defendable total of 168.
#3 Ajinkya Rahane flops once again
Rahane's dreadful form with the bat continued as India's premier Test batsman had his middle stump castled by a peach of a delivery from Zaheer Khan. It was an in-swinging delivery that breached Rahane’s defenses and crashed into the stump as Zaheer rolled back the years.
Though Rahane could not do much tonight because of the sheer brilliance of the delivery, he needs to do better in the upcoming games before the Champions Trophy begins in England.
#4 Lost the plot in the last five overs
At one stage, Pune were cruising in their run chase with Steve Smith and Manoj Tiwary professionally scoring runs and keeping the run rate in check. Smith's wicket did not seem to worry Pune much with Ben Stokes coming in and getting used to the slowness of the wicket early.
Then, just as the partnership between Stokes and Tiwary was looking like it would guide Pune home, the Supergiant made a complete mess of the run chase. Stokes was dismissed off a full toss and MS Dhoni was run out in a disappointing fashion to leave them reeling.
#5 Mahendra Singh Dhoni's lack of judgement
Dhoni was expected to see out the game for Pune as, after his arrival, the Supergiant needed to score at just over 10 an over. Dhoni took his time to get set before mistiming a shot and casually setting off for a single. Mohammad Shami, the fielder in focus, saw Dhoni’s lackadaisical running and aimed a perfect throw at the stumps. The wicketkeeper realized his mistake too late as by then the ball had clipped the bails.
It was this casual approach which cost Dhoni his wicket and more importantly, Pune the game.
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