Shreyas leads Daredevils revival
The Delhi Daredevils arrested a losing streak by beating the Kolkata Knight Riders by 55 runs at the Feroz Shah Kotla on Friday night.
Shreyas Iyer, in his first match as captain, led the revival with an unbeaten 93 after he lost the toss and the Knight Riders elected to field.
The pitch didn’t seem to have that many runs in it but the Daredevils got off to an excellent start with Colin Munro (33) and Prithvi Shaw providing a fantastic platform for the middle order to launch.
Shaw equaled Sanju Samson as the youngest man to make an IPL fifty at the age of just 17, the diminutive batsman showed terrific timing throughout and held things together after Munro was bowled by Shivam Mavi.
Piyush Chawla finally flummoxed Shaw (62) with one that kept low and fears of another collapse were rife when Risabh Pant (0) skied his first ball to keeper Dinesh Karthik.
But Shreyas consolidated with Glenn Maxwell (27) before unleashing a furious assault that powered the Daredevils to 219 in their 20 overs.
The Daredevils bowlers thrived with KKR forced to chase the game with Maxwell (2/22) surprisingly opening the bowling and getting the wicket of Chris Lynn (5).
Trent Boult cut into the KKR middle order with the wickets of Robin Uthappa (1) and opener Sunil Narine (26).
Shubnam Gil (37) and Andre Russell (44) tried to rebuild and stay in the game after the middle order gave way.
Avesh Khan (2/29) struck the critical blow in the chase yorking Russell to take the wind out of the Knight Riders sails though his aggressive send off raised some eyebrows.
The win lifts the Delhi Daredevils off the bottom of the IPL table lifting them above the Mumbai Indians.