In some of the cleanest hitting you will ever see in the IPL, or indeed any cricket, Rishabh Pant and Sanju Samson took the Gujarat Lions bowlers to the cleaners, and then some, and the a little more after that, making a chase of 209 look like a Sunday morning stroll, with a nice cup of tea.
After GL were put into bat, it looked like the Delhi Daredevils were going to suffer another defeat in IPL 2017, when Suresh Raina and Dinesh Karthik guided their team to 208 for seven in their 20 overs.
With Karun Nair dismissed early, the pressure was on the young guns of DD, but Pant (97, 43b, 6x4, 9x6) and Samson (61, 31b, 0x4, 7x6) came together to put on a quite insane partnership of 143 in 10.3 overs, a partnership that had 15 sixes and five fours, and took the game completely away from the Gujarat Lions.
Courtesy that partnership, DD cruised, absolutely cruised, to the target to end GL's interest in the competition, as far as making the IPL 2017 playoffs are concerned. The Delhi Daredevils, with their second consecutive win, though, are very much in the hunt.
The skipper Karun (12, 11b, 2x4) fell in just the third over of the chase, nicking a short ball off Pradeep Sangwan, but what that did was bring in the explosive Pant to the crease, and with Samson looking in wonderful touch as well, DD exploded to 63/1 in the Powerplay overs.
Both these players have the uncanny knack of hitting sixes, even off good balls, and what that skill does is give them a chance to stay with the required run rate even with all the fielders back once the restrictions are done.
Pant and Samson unleashed one six after another – Pant took James Faulkner for three sixes and a four in one over, during a phase in which 90 runs were scored in six overs, and these were the middle overs, when such scoring is unheard of – and easy as pie, the required rate came down to seven an over and then below six, and all this in a chase of 209.
Just plain ridiculous.
When Samson fell in the 14th over of the innings, to Jadeja, Pant was on 87. He raced to 97 with a six and a four, before, in the next over, the left-hander, the heir apparent to MS Dhoni, agonisingly missed the hundred, after Basil Thampi found an outside edge.
With the two batting stars for DD gone, the job had to be finished, and because all the home team needed at that point was 30 runs from 33 balls, it was never going to be a problem as Shreyas Iyer (14 n.o., 8b, 2x6) and Corey Anderson (18 n.o., 12b, 2x6) took DD home.
Earlier, the Gujarat Lions were in trouble just eight balls into the match, with Brendon McCullum (1, 3b), off a corker of a delivery from Kagiso Rabada, that just seamed away and took the outside edge, and Dwayne Smith (9, 4b, 2x4), lazily run out.
It could have been worse, with Raina, first, dropped by Marlon Samuels, making his Delhi Daredevils debut, in the covers, before Iyer let go of an absolute dolly in the slips, after the ball looped to him off a really good short ball from Rabada.
Raina would get one more life a little while later, when he was on 40, with Samuels again spilling one, this time at midwicket, and the Lions would pay dearly for those misses.
If there is one batsman you do not drop in the IPL, it is the leading run-scorer in the tournament's history.
The left-hander counter-attacked quite wonderfully, thanks to those lives, with Karthik, after taking a few balls to get settled, joining in with gusto as well.
Raina and Karthik put on 133 for the third wicket in just 12 overs, and with those two at the crease, GL looked set for a score of over 220.
However, once Raina (77, 43b, 5x4, 4x6), unnecessarily run out, and Karthik (65, 34b, 5x4, 5x6), caught quite spectacularly by Corey Anderson at mid-off, diving back and taking it one-handed with his left hand, fell within an over, the GL innings went down a couple of gears.
From a certain 220 and more, it came down to "maybe they'll get to around 200," with only two big sixes from Ravindra Jadeja (18 n.o., 7b, 2x6), off the final two balls, getting GL to that 208 total, a total that proved to be not even remotely enough.
Watch IPL 2017 DD vs GL match highlights
Delhi Daredevils vs Gujarat Lions: IPL 2017 scorecard:
Toss: DD, who chose to bowl.
GL: 208/7 in 20 overs.
DD: 214/3 in 17.3 overs.
Result: DD won by seven wickets with 15 balls remaining.
Bowling: DD: Shahbaz Nadeem 2-0-28-0; Kasgiso Rabada 4-0-28-2; Pat Cummins 4-0-30-2; Mohammed Shami 3-0-40-0; Amit Mishra 2-0-23-0; Marlon Samuels 2-0-22-0; Corey Anderson 3-0-36-1.
GL: Pradeep Sangwan 4-0-43-1; Basil Thampi 4-0-40-1; James Faulkner 2.3-0-35-0; Suresh Raina 2-0-24-0; Ankit Soni 2-0-26-0; Ravindra Jadeja 2-0-28-1; Dwayne Smith 1-0-11-0.
Fall of wickets: GL: 10/1, Brendon McCullum (1.1 overs); 10/2, Dwayne Smith (1.2 overs); 143/3, Suresh Raina (13.2 overs); 158/4, Dinesh Karthik (14.1 overs); 178/5, Ishan Kishan (17.1 overs); 189/6, Aaron Finch (18.3 overs); 192/7, James Faulkner (19.1 overs).
DD: 24/1, Karun Nair (2.5 overs); 167/2, Sanju Samson (13.2 overs); 179/3, Rishabh Pant (14.3 overs).
