Raipur: Kedar Jadhav’s valiant unbeaten knock of 63 from 34 balls went in vain as Delhi Daredevils lost to Sunrisers Hyderabad by six runs in the Indian Premier League at the Shaheed Veer Narayan Singh International Stadium here on Saturday.
After winning the toss and choosing to bat, Sunrisers posted 163/4 thanks to Moises Henriques’ unbeaten knock of 74 in 46 balls.
In reply, the Daredevils chase started wth Quinton de Kock’s pacy 50 off 31 deliveries before Jadhav’s explosion at the end nearly helped them home.
It was their eighth loss of the season.
Daredevils now have eight points from 12 matches and are seventh, one place ahead of Kings XI Punjab, while Sunrisers jumped to fourth spot with 12 points from 11 matches.
Earlier, Sunrisers seemed to struggle to up the run rate after losing regular wickets against the Daredevils bowlers, who put in a disciplined show at their adopted home ground.
Sunrisers got off to a poor start, losing dynamic openers David Warner (17) and Shikhar Dhawan (13) early. While veteran left-arm pacer Zaheer Khan accounted for Dhawan, Nathan Coulter-Nile removed skipper Warner.
At 31/2 in 4.1 overs, Australian Henriques and Englishman Eoin Morgan (22) joined forces but their 33-run partnership ended before it could flourish.
Jayant Yadav broke the stand just when it was getting settled and it dented the Sunrisers’ progress.
Karn Sharma was promoted up the order but he contributed only 16 in a 35-run partnership for the fourth wicket with all-rounder Henriques. Karn was dismissed by Coulter-Nile as the batsman mistimed one to Jayant at point.
Ravi Bopara scored an unbeaten 17 off just 11 balls as he forged a 64-run undefeated stand for the fifth wicket with Henriques.
In the 19th over, bowled by Albie Morkel, Henriques launched two sixes while Bopara collected seven runs, enabling the visitors to get to a competitive total.
Henriques took his time before executing his big shots. He hit five big sixes and one four.
In pursuit of 164, Daredevils started poorly. Sunrisers medium pacer Bhubaneswar Kumar removed opener Shreyas Iyer for zero.
Skipper J.P. Duminy came to the crease but he did not look his usual fluent self.
De Kock was in his element, however, collecting boundaries at will through the off side before he lost his wicket to leg-spinner Karn (2/12) in the second ball of the ninth over.
A flurry of wickets fell for the hosts as IPL’s costliest buy, Yuvraj Singh (2), and Duminy fell within the next two overs.
While Parvez Rasool sent Yuvraj packing, Karn castled Duminy to leave the Daredevils 66/4 in 10.2 overs.
However, Jadhav and Saurabh Tiwary (26) exercised damage control. Jadhav started his onslaught in the 14th over of the innings bowled by Bopara, which went for 15 runs.
With the score at 105/4 in 15 overs, Daredevils needed a big over and Praveen Kumar served it up.
Praveen suffered at the hands of Jadhav, who milked the Uttar Pradesh bowler for two sixes and a four.
Jadhav continued to flay the Sunrisers bowlers and at the end of the 19th over, the Daredevils needed only 16.
Ishant Sharma, however, gave away only nine runs to secure the victory.
