Posted by Gareth Parry Added on: April 16 2012
Delhi Daredevils 93 for 3 (Sehwag 32) beat Mumbai Indians 92 (Harbhajan 33, Umesh 2-10, Nadeem 2-16) by seven wickets
This is a match that was billed as a meeting of two of the IPL 2012 favourites. The Mumbai Indians have one of the best bowling line-ups in this years IPL whilst the Delhi Daredevils have a powerful batting line-up including Sehwag, Pietersen, Jayawardene and the returning Ross Taylor.
With such a stellar batting squad at his disposal Sehwag didn't hesitate to field first when he won the toss. Delhi feel that they can chase down whatever total they are set with the quality they have.
The Delhi Bowlers were in no mood to play second fiddle to the sides batsmen and put in a superb display to dismiss the Mumbai Indians for just 92 runs.
The Mumbai woes started early with no runs been scored off the bat from the first 10 balls of the innings. This caused the opening pair of Levi and Jacobs to become visibly frustrated with themselves. Jacobs dismissal was a perfect example of the pressure dot balls bring in IPL cricket. He was bowled by Nadeem, playing an ugly hack into the leg side. When Richard Levi fell in identical fashion to Nadeem the Mumbai Indians were on 5 for 2 and hoping that Tendulkar will be fit to play soon.
The introduction of Morkel in the fifth over only compounded the Mumbai Indians woes with the South African paceman bowling with impressive pace and extracting bounce from the surface. The partnership of Rayudu and Sharma managed to survive into the eighth over but neither looked comfortable with Sharma in particular being lucky to not be dismissed as Morkel found the top edge of his bat twice.
The Delhi bowlers continued to bowl parsimoniously with Mumbai only scoring 30 runs in the first 7 overs. The pressure this low scoring rate built forced an error from Rayudu who tried to run a quick single. He was oblivious to his partner sending him back and, in spite of the first fielder missing the stumps, was run out by Sehwag who calmly backed up the throw and passed the ball to the wicket keeper.
Pollard, who came to the crease at the fall of Rayudu's wicket, has often being criticised for being a one dimensional cricketer. This criticism rang true today; Mumbai needed to consolidate and rebuild but Pollard instead played an irresponsible heave and was caught in the deep by Ross Taylor, off the bowling of Yadav. Sharma fell soon after, as his luck ran out, hitting a leading edge to Deep Square Leg where Ross Taylor was waiting to take another good catch. This left the Mumbai Indians batting in tatters at 41 for 5.
The Mumbai tail was left to salvage what it could and Harbhajan played a good hand in ensuring that the Indians did not get dismissed for an embarrassing total. He scored a 6 and two 4's off consecutive balls in the 12th over on his way to the innings top score of 33 from 22 balls.
Harbhajan's effort was not enough though as the Mumbai tail-enders fell at regular intervals. The Mumbai Indians did their best to bat all of their overs but there resistance was broken with 4 balls left. All of the Delhi bowlers contributed to their success, a measure of which was the fact that Delhi bowled 2 maiden overs. The stand out performers were Nadeem (4-0-16-2) and Morkel (4-1-22-2) but the whole Delhi attack were outstanding and will be a formidable force going further into the tournament.
The Delhi Daredevils reached there target of 93 in the 15th over and were in control throughout the chase. Mumbai did manage to take three Delhi wickets with the pitch offering some of the same problems that it caused the Mumbai Batsmen and had the target been around 120 or 130 it could well have been a close contest. As it was it was a comfortable victory for the Daredevils with their bowlers showing that they won't be easily overshadowed by the Delhi batsmen.
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