IPL 2018: Delhi Daredevils pull off consolation win against Chennai Super Kings

For a while, you had to feel for the young cubs in the Delhi Daredevils camp, trying to cut their teeth on top-flight cricket. Then they find themselves hounded by the big dogs in Chennai Super Kings and flaunting their canines with the home crowd too sporting yellow. IPL 2018: Delhi Daredevils pull off consolation win against Chennai Super Kings

For once, the Daredevils bowling stood up for the batsmen and the successful defence of 162/5 was a big bite on the egos of the big dogs.Call it MS Dhoni’s immaculate calculation of chase or just a dangerous habit that he has inculcated over the second of his career—the chase, a par one at this level, got down to the wire. It’s almost a given now, Dhoni is no more the one who would single-handedly chase down stiff totals.

He is the second fiddle to a chase and he banked on his trusted lieutenant Ravindra Jadeja to take the team over the line once Ambati Rayudu holed out at mid-wicket off Harshal Patel after seamlessly notching up a half-century. The frantic scampers between the wickets, the ill-timed hoics fell deflating 34 runs short of the target.

The defeat might not hamper their CSK’s chances of finishing in the top-two but wooden-spooners DD exposed the frailties in their death-over game—both with the bat and ball. A strike-rate under 75 in a 23-ball stay for 17 is a telling statement of diminishing ability.

His quintessential flamboyance appears too sporadically for the Indian fans. When his famed ‘helicopter’ shot off Trent Boult landed in the lap of Shreyas Iyer, well inside the long-on boundary, it left too much on the plates of his make-shift finisher Jadeja and the trusted one Dwayne Bravo. ‘Playing for pride’ is perhaps one of the most conveniently used clichés in world cricket. Yet, it is one of the toughest jobs to pull off.

The men in CSK’s shirts were about to make it even tougher for Daredevils on the night. Patel launching into Dwayne Bravo in the final over to take 27 runs and take the home team’s score to 162/5 was just the fillip the management had yearned for.

That Daredevils reached a stage on Friday night when they couldn’t find four overseas players good enough to fit into the playing XI was indication enough of the responsibility on the young shoulders of the Rishabh Pant, Shreyas Iyer and Prithvi Shaw had multiplied over the last six weeks. The unsure minds failed to capitalize on the starts.

The clutter-free, fearless minds suddenly started calculating and, perhaps, thinking about the result even before taking stance after being sent in by Dhoni. The big dogs teased the little ones all evening.

Rayudu’s use of the crease with a still head against the seamers and spinners was all that the young boys in Daredevils struggled to do against the sharp pace of Lungi Ngidi and Jadeja’s flat left-arm spinning deliveries.Rayudu was always in control of the chase. He seems to be in celebratory mood till he reaches England and gets his blue Indian shirt back in another month and half’s time. The mind has clearly shed doubts as he reached his fifty. Perhaps, he needs to take it on himself to carry his bat a little longer.