IPL: Delhi Daredevils beat Mumbai Indians by 37 runs; End Ferozeshah Kotla jinx
Delhi Daredevils broke their Ferozeshah Kotla curse in style. Facing Mumbai Indians in the IPL, the Daredevils won at the Kotla after 9 failed attempts by lodging an impressive 37-run win.
Having been put to bat by Rohit Sharma, Delhi, despite Mayank Agarwal's early wicket got off to a flier. JP Duminy and Shreyas Iyer put together a 154-run stand that not only helped the home side to recover from the early jolt, but put them firmly in the driver's seat.
After the first 10 overs, one could be forgiven for thinking that Mumbai were in command having restricted Delhi to 65/1. However, after initialy apprehension, Iyer and Duminy got into the groove and lost all inhibitions by smacking the bowlers all over the park.
By the 14th over, the score was doubled and despite the loss of Iyer for a brilliant 83 off 56 balls, the Daredevils, through some power hitting in the slog overs by Angelo Mathews and Duminy reached a sublime 190. The captain finished with 78 runs after facing 50 balls.
Tahir shines yet again
Mumbai Indians, on their part, started superbly and with Lendl Simmons and Parthiv Patel looking in good nick, it seemed like they'll post a stern test to the Delhi bowlers. But, after an ill-timed shot, the West Indian departed and that started the downfall of the visiting team.
Patel was next to go, while Unmukt Chand and Kieron Pollard hardly made a significant contribution. Rohit Sharma and Ambati Rayudu fought hard, but after Nathan Coulter-Nile dismissed Sharma, the impressive Imran Tahir, who finished the match with figures of 4-0-22-3, cleaned up the opposition.
The South African got rid off Hardik Pandya and Rayudu as the scorecard read 135/7. It was just a matter of bowling out the final overs as Mumbai managed to play out the full quota without losing all their wickets against the belligerent Delhi attack. They finished a good 37 runs short and recorded their 5th loss in this season's IPL to stay rooted to the bottom spot.
The Mumbai batsmen fell like a pack of cards after Simmons' wicket as captain Rohit Sharma was left to rue the inability of the batsmen to build on a solid start. Delhi sneaked ahead of SunRisers Hyderabad in the fourth spot in the points table.
Shreyas Iyer was awarded the man of the match award for helping his side end their rut at the Ferozeshah Kotla.