IPL 2016: Rising Pune Supergiants beat Delhi Daredevils by 19 runs (D/L method) at Visakhapatnam, Stars and Flops

The side mentored by Rahul Dravid now needs to win both its remaining games in order to make it to the playoffs.

Though the match was only of academic interest for the Rising Pune Supergiants (RPS), who have already been knocked out of the Indian Premier League (IPL) season 9, they still made the most out of it and turned party poopers for the Delhi Daredevils (DD), who are still in the hunt. ‘Hosts’ for the match at a neutral venue, RPS beat DD by 19 runs (D/L method) and made the road ahead for them a little difficult. The side mentored by Rahul Dravid now needs to win both its remaining games in order to make it to the playoffs. ALSO READ: IPL 2016, Match 48, Pick of the tweets: Rising Pune Supergiants vs Delhi Daredevils at Visakhapatnam.

Almost everything went in favour of MS Dhoni’s men in this rain-affected game as they beat DD comprehensively. Chasing a modest 122, RPS got off to a decent start as Usman Khawaja hit a flurry of boundaries up front before getting caught at point for 19. Here on, Ajinkya Rahane with his unbeaten 42 and George Bailey took the charge and moved towards the total steadily. Barring a few hiccups, like Bailey getting struck on his head with his helmet flying off and falling on the ground, dog-interrupting the match by getting on to the field and a couple of rain breaks, RPS looked all set to win the game. When the game stopped for the second and final time, RPS were declared winners by 19 runs through the D/L method.

Earlier, Dhoni won the toss and decided to chase, keeping the rain forecast in mind. He handed a debut to Rajasthan pacer Deepak Chahar, famous for his 8-10 spell on Ranji Trophy debut, in place of Murugan Ashwin. DD made wholesale changes, something which has been a constant this season, and brought in Shreyas Iyer, Nathan Coulter-Nile and Mohammad Shami in place of Mayank Agarwal, Imran Tahir and Shahbaz Nadeem. It was the Ashok Dinda-Adam Zampa show that kept them to a low total of 121, as all their top-order batsmen struggled to get going. Had it not been for Chris Morris’ 20-ball 38 run cameo towards the end, DD would have ended on an even smaller total.

After losing De Kock and Iyer early, DD were recovering when Karun Nair and Sanju Samson were in the middle. But this is when Adam Zampa got them as well as Rishabh Pant and rattled the middle order. This proved to be the turning point in the match as DD could never really recover from here on. Zampa, along with Dinda, finished with three wickets. Dinda’s effort was rewarded with the Man of the Match award.

Brief Scores:

Delhi Daredevils 121 for 6 in 20 overs [Karun Nair 41(43), Chris Morris 38(20)*; Ashok Dinda 4-1-20-3, Adam Zampa 4-0-21-3] lost to Rising Pune Supergiants 76 for 1 in 11 overs [Ajinkya Rahane 42(36)*, Chris Morris 2-0-12-1] by 19 runs (D/L method).

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