Jonny Bairstow started from where had he left against Royal Challengers Bangalore as he hit a whirlwind 28-ball 48 to set the run chase for Sunrisers Hyderabad (SRH) in their Indian Premier League clash against Delhi Capitals (DC) at the Feroz Shah Kotla on Thursday.
Chasing 129, SRH won by 5 wickets with nine balls to spare.
The start from the opening pair of Bairstow and David Warner set the platform for the rest of the batting. Looking to hit everything out of sight, Bairstow put SRH off to a flyer as they reached 62/0 in the first six overs.
Even though SRH lost Bairstow and Warner (10) in quick succession, Vijay Shankar and Manish Pandey settled down to ensure that the scoreboard kept ticking.
However, Pandey (10) and Shankar (16) too fell in quick succession to once again raise the hopes of the Delhi players. However, it was too late in the day as Mohammad Nabi (17*) and Yusuf Pathan (9*) took SRH home. Nabi finished things off in style with a six over third man.
Earlier, visiting skipper Bhuvneshwar Kumar won the toss and put DC in. The SRH bowlers started well, stifling the home team batsmen on a wicket which wore a typical low and slow look.
Mohammad Nabi (2/21) and Rashid Khan (1/18) made full use of the conditions as the DC batsmen failed to read the two Afghanistan spinners.
Prithvi Shaw looked to start aggressively as he hit Bhuvneshwar for a boundary off the first ball of the match. But the SRH skipper had the last laugh as he sent Shaw's (11) stumps for a walk in the third over of the DC innings.
After that it was all about spinning a web around the DC batsmen as Nabi (opening the bowling with Bhuvneshwar) sent back Shikhar Dhawan (12). The struggle of the Delhi batsmen was reflected on the scoreboard as they managed just 36 runs for the loss of two wickets in the Powerplay.
Star batsman Rishabh Pant (5) fell while trying to up the ante as Deepak Hooda picked up a smart catch at long-off off Nabi with the scoreboard reading 52/3. Skipper Shreyas Iyer did try to wage a battle, but he didn't find much support from the other end.
Iyer (43 off 41 balls) was finally cleaned up by Rashid as the leg-spinner was finally rewarded with a wicket for his quality effort. All-rounder Chris Morris tried to wield the long handle, but could only manage 17 off 15 balls as DC scored 24 runs off the last two overs with Axar Patel finishing with a six off the final delivery.
(With inputs from IANS)
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