Rising Pune Supergiants (RPS) registered a comprehensive victory over the Delhi Daredevils (DD) in match no. 47 of IPL 2016 at the ACA-VDCA Stadium in Visakhapatam on Tuesday. MS Dhoni & co. won the match by 19 runs on D/L method as rain Gods did play spoilsport and halted the game twice during the run chase.
Ajinkya Rahane and Usman Khawaja got off to a good start to the run chase.
George Bailey and Rahane finished things of for the Supergiants. Rahane, who has been the best batsman for RPS, remained unbeaten till the end.
Rahane orchestrated his innings beautifully and made sure that his side goes over the line. The Mumbai batsman remained unbeaten on 42 runs from 36 balls.
None of the Daredevils bowlers could make an impact during the run chase.
Earlier, MS Dhoni had won the toss and asked the Daredevils to bat first. The visitors could only manage 28 runs in the first six overs.
Supergiants bowlers were on the money right from the start of the innings. Ashok Dinda picked up the crucial wicket of Quinton de Kock from the first ball of the third over. Dinda also removed Shreyas Iyer in his next over and that really hurt the Daredevils' momentum.
Dhoni played his cards at the right time. Zampa was introduced after the Powerplay overs and he did not disappoint his skipper. He removed Sanju Samson and Rishabh Pant in quick successions. Zampa also picked up the important wicket of Karun Nair, who ended up scoring 41 runs for his side.
Ashok Dinda was also instrumental in running through the Daredevils batting lineup as the Bengal seamer also picked up three wickets in his allotted four overs.
The Daredevils were struggling right throughout their innings but some mighty blows from Chris Morris towards the back end of the innings helped them to reach a paltry total of 121 for the loss of six wickets at the end of 20 overs.
Morris scored 22 runs from the last over of Thisara Perera and that gave the Delhi Daredevils bowlers something to play with on a wicket, which was difficult to bat on.
This loss put a dent on Delhi Dardevils' hope of making it to the IPL 2016 playoffs. Now they will have to win both their remaining games but it is not going to be busy as they will be facing Royal Challengers Bangalore and table-toppers Sunrisers Hyderabad.
