Kevin Pietersen led Delhi Daredevils became victorious in their face off against the reigning champion Mumbai Indians at Sharjah Cricket Stadium. It was the 4th consecutive loss for the Rohit Sharma’s Mumbai Indians team.
Rohit Sharma (4 runs, 5 balls) won the toss and opted to bat first, and as a captain he took the responsibility to open the innings for the team. However, this move back-fired due to a sudden run out of the captain in the 2nd over only. The other opener Aditya Tare managed to make 8 runs hitting just a single boundary.
MI’s newly bought foreigners like Corey Anderson (13 runs, 14 balls) and Mike Hussey (10 runs, 18 balls) failed to get going, and thus MI fall into deep trouble while this league game was progressing. Kieron Pollard (33 runs, 30 balls) and CM Gautam (22 runs, 18 balls) made a 40 run partnership at the back end of innings, which helped MI to score 125/6 after 20 overs.
All the DD bowlers performed really well, as the young Jaydev Unadkat took 2 wickets for the team. The local spinner Nadeem and South African fast bowler Wayne Parnell got 1 wicket each. It was really a very smart piece of bowling display from the entire Delhi team.
As the target was not so big, the DD openers stated the innings slowly. Murli Vijay (40 runs, 34 balls) and Quinton de Kock (16 runs, 24 balls) managed to build a partnership of 34 runs from 41 balls for the first wicket. After that the in-form batsman JP Duminy (19 runs, 24 balls) and the skipper Kevin Pietersen (26 not out, 18 balls) added salt to the taste. At the end Delhi Daredevils chased the total quite comfortably. They won the match by 6 wickets with 7 balls yet to be bowled.
Lasith Malinga yet again was the star performer from the MI bowling unit. He took two important wickets while conceding only 17 runs in his limited 4 overs. Corey Anderson and the captain Rohit shared the other two wickets equally. MI bowlers tried their level best but they didn’t have enough runs on the board to defend.
Murli Vijay was chosen as the Man of the Match for his innings of 40 runs from 34 balls. He smashed 4 boundaries and a huge six in his innings. It was a great team performance by Delhi which helped them to register yet another win in the tournament.