IPL 2018: Match 26, DD vs KKR- Who Said What

The match between the Delhi Daredevils (DD) and the Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) turned out to be a one-sided encounter in favour of Shreyas Iyer’s men as the new captain made his captaincy debut in the Indian Premier League (IPL). Delhi blew away KKR to muster a colossal score on the board and their bowlers followed up with a clinical performance to fetch the team their second victory.

Iyer thumps the Knight Riders  

The pitch at the Feroz Shah Kotla looked much better one and hence, Dinesh Karthik won the toss and elected to field first. Prithvi Shaw and Colin Munro opened the batting for DD and the duo took the bowlers to the cleaners. Munro was dismissed by Shivam Mavi, but Shaw kept peppering the boundaries and brought up his maiden fifty in the mega event.

Rishabh Pant perished to Andre Russell for a golden duck after which Glenn Maxwell and Shreyas Iyer unfolded the mayhem. The captain was severe on all the bowlers and smashed 93 runs off 40 balls, which included ten monstrous sixes. He muscled 29 runs off Shivam Mavi’s final over which propelled Delhi’s score to a mammoth score.

Knights crash in their run chase

KKR started in the most shambolic manner possible as Glenn Maxwell churned out the prized scalp of Chris Lynn. Sunil Narine cleared the boundaries a few times, but eventually fell prey to a vicious bouncer by Trent Boult. Robin Uthappa and Nitish Rana perished cheaply, and the Men in Gold and Purple were well and truly staring at a massive defeat at the Kotla.

Karthik never got going in his knock and became Amit Mishra’s first victim. Thereafter, Shubman Gill and Russell kept the scoreboard ticking, with big shots and turning the strike over. However, the required rate increased in stature as the innings progressed and finally went out of their radar as they eventually fell short by 55 runs.

Dinesh Karthik, the skipper of Kolkata Knight Riders, said

“220 is a big task, if the dew had come in, it would have made it easy for us but today was that sort of a day where there was no dew. I thought they really batted much better than us. If Russell starts hitting, he gives us hope but he is also a human being. We need to put our hands up and say we didn’t play good cricket. Three spinners doesn’t generally go for a lot of runs. I am comfortable in bowling them in the powerplay. I think we really need to wake up in the fielding department. We need to improve our fielding standard and that should turn around the things for us”.

Shreyas Iyer, the skipper of Delhi Daredevils and Player of the Match, said

Obviously a great feeling getting on the winning side. It is an amazing feeling winning my first game as a skipper. All of us contributed for this win. We wanted to bowl first. So, a nice toss to lose. It gave the batsman the freedom to express themselves. He (Prithvi) has been really batting well since the start of the season. Even in the practice games before the IPL. It is always important how he is starting off. Colin Munro at the top with him added 50 runs and that benefitted for the team. Liam Plunkett is our goto guy. He came up to me and told me he wants to bowl the 16th or 17th over, whichever over he bowled. And I really like it when my bowlers come up to me and talk. It is really good.