Virender Sehwag led from the front with a blistering innings on a difficult Kochi track to keep his team afloat in the competition. Then South African pair of Morne Morkel and van der Merwe helped bowl Koch out cheaply pushing the home team low down on the points table.
Sehwag opted to bat first, thinking a total around 140 would be competitive. Van der Merwe had a go in place of Hopes who was injured. Sreesanth gave Delhi horrors upfront on two accounts, first that he removed Warner and Naman Ojha in one over, and second that the ball kept low on both occasions. When Jadeja removed Rao, Delhi were in trouble at 35 for 3 in the 7th over.
Sehwag was scoring at less than run a ball as Yogesh Nagar gave him good company reaching 60 at the end of 12th over. Sehwag then decided to take off, and he did that in style by hitting Jadeja for two lovely sixes. He continued to hammer the bowling till he was holed out in the deep off Vinay Kumar for a breath-taking 80 off 47 balls that included 8 fours and 5 sixes, scoring 49 off his last 15 balls.
Delhi posted a challenging total of 157 for 7. Sreesanth was sensational with figures of 2 for 10 in his 4 overs.
Kochi too started horribly, as Morkel and Irfan Pathan removed the openers cheaply. Jayewardene departed for a sluggish 18, leaving his team tottering at 50 for 4 in the 10th over. Brad Hodge and Ravindra Jadeja tried to resurrect the innings, but they could not go on to make big enough contributions. First Morkel came back to jolt the Kochi innings, then van der Merwe got three in one over to finish off the innings in embarrassing style for Kochi.
Kochi were all out for 119 in the 19th over, losing by 38 runs. Morkel and Merwe bagged 3 wickets each. Sehwag was undoubtedly the man of the match.
Delhi Daredevils 157/7 (Sehwag 80, Sreesanth 2/10) beat Kochi Tuskers Kerala 119/10 (Jadeja 31, Morkel 3/18, Merwe 3/20) by 38 runs
Man of the match: Virender Sehwag (Delhi)
Published in SportPulse.net
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