IPL PIX: Delhi Capitals outplay Sunrisers, rise to top

Images from the Indian Premier league match between Sunrisers Hyderabad and Delhi Capitals, in Dubai, on Wednesday.

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Delhi Capitals rode on brilliant fast bowling from South Africans Anrich Nortje and Kagiso Rabada to trounce Sunrisers Hyderabad by eight wickets in the Indian Premier League match, in Dubai, on Wednesday.

The victory took Delhi to the top of the eight-team table and consolidated their chances of making the play-offs.

It was a top-notch performance from Delhi Capitals in their first outing in the second phase of this year's IPL. They eased home in 17.5 overs in pursuit of a modest 135-run target.

Nortje finished with figures of 2 for 12 while Rabada bagged 3 for 37 and Axar Patel 2 for 21.

The last edition's runners-up are now well and truly in contention for a play-off berth, with 14 points from nine games.

Sunrisers Hyderabad, with just two points, are all but out of the race.

Delhi started their chase on an aggressive note, with Shikhar Dhawan and young Prithvi Shaw (11 off 8) adding 20 runs off 17 balls before the latter was caught by Kane Williamson off the bowling of Khaleel Ahmed as the batter went for an extravagant shot over mid-wicket.

Orange Cap holder Dhawan though was unperturbed by his partner’s dismissal and continued his aggressive approach, slog-sweeping Rashid Khan over deep midwicket for a maximum in the Afghan spinner's first over.

While the Sunrisers batsmen struggled on the wicket, Dhawan made it look easy as he then pulled a Jason Holder delivery to the square leg fence.

Swing bowler Sandeep Sharma was then taken to task by Dhawan. He hit the medium pacer for back-to-back boundaries in the 10th over take Delhi to 69 for 1.

But Dhawan paid the price for being too aggressive. The left-hander went for a slog-sweep over deep square leg in search of a six and was caught by Abdul Samad off the bowling of Rashid.

Dhawan's runs, which came off 37 balls, were laced with six boundaries and one over the fence.

Shreyas Iyer (47 not out off 41), who played second fiddle when Dhawan was around, then took the onus upon himself and upped the ante, hitting Sandeep Sharma for two consecutive fours in the 14th over.

Iyer continued to bat freely and in the company of skipper Rishabh Pant (35 off 21) took Delhi home with 13 balls to spare.

While Khaleel Ahmed extracted some pace and bounce from the track, none of the other SRH bowlers troubled the Delhi batsmen.

Iyer hit two fours and as many sixes during his knock, while Pant's innings was studded with three boundaries and two lofty hits over the fence.

Earlier, Sunrisers Hyderabad put up a dismal batting performance and were restricted to a meagre 134 for 9.

The script did not turn out as the Sunrisers wanted after opting to bat, as they lost David Warner (0) to the third ball of the innings without any runs on the board.

Wriddhiman Saha (18) then added 29 runs with skipper Kane Williamson (18) before the former mistimed a pull to Shikhar Dawan at midwicket off the bowling of Kagiso Rabada.

Williamson and Manish Pandey then tried to build the innings, stitching 31 runs for the third wicket, but Sunrisers soon suffered a jolt when their skipper offered a simple catch to Shimron Hetmyer at long-off off the bowling of Axar Patel.

Pandey (18) followed suit and Kedar Jadhav (3) too did not help his cause either.

Jason Holder (10) too turned out to be a big flop as 10 runs was all he could muster.

With the damage already done, Abdul Samad (28 off 21, 2x4s, 1x6) tried his best to shore up the run-rate in the company of Rashid Khan (22 off 19 balls) but he too departed in search of quick runs, top-edging a miss-timed pull to Delhi Capitals skipper Rishabh Pant off Rabada's bowling.

Rashid hit two fours and a six while scoring a much-needed 22 off 19 balls before he was run-out and Bhuvneshwar Kumar remained unbeaten on 5 off 3 balls as the Sunrisers swelled their total in the end overs.

Rabada was the pick of the Delhi bowlers with figures of 3 for 37, while Anrich Nortje (2/12) and Patel (2/32) picked up two wickets each.

• IPL 2021