IPL 2017, DD vs RPS: 5 things that went wrong for Rising Pune Supergiant
Delhi Daredevils took the field on their home turf of the Feroz Shah Kotla to salvage some pride against a strong, in-form Rising Pune Supergiant side. Delhi gave their loyal fan base something to cheer about as they went on to beat one of the deadliest teams this season by seven runs.
Delhi won the toss and surprisingly decided to bat first on a flat deck which slowed down as the game progressed.
After losing two crucial batsmen in Sanju Samson and Shreyas Iyer early, Karun Nair helped Delhi stabilise the innings firstly along with Rishabh Pant and then with Marlon Samuels. Nair played a sensible knock of 64 runs off 45 balls which helped Delhi reach 168. However, the spotlight belonged to the stupendous fielding efforts by the Pune players as they grabbed on to three spectacular catches over the course of the 20 overs.
Extra Cover: 5 memorable moments from the DD-RPS match that don’t fade away
Pune began the chase in the worst possible manner as Ajinkya Rahane was clean bowled by Zaheer Khan on the very first ball of the first over. Steve Smith and Manoj Tiwary then shouldered the responsibility to take Pune home, however, Smith was dismissed by Shahbaz Nadeem.
Stokes then arrived at the crease and smashed his way to 33 and it was his wicket that proved to be the turning point in the game as a short collapse at the end proved to be the wrong doing for the Supergiant.
Without further ado, let's delve into the five things that went wrong for the Rising Pune Supergiant in their last over defeat to the Delhi Daredevils:
#1 Failed to capitalise on early breakthroughs
After Delhi decided to bat first, the onus was on their batsmen to provide a solid start for the team. But Samson failed tonight as he was run out by a stunning Ben Stokes throw from short cover. The fact that he had just one stump to aim at made it that much more special. Iyer soon followed suit as he nicked one from Jaydev Unadkat to hand a simple catch to MS Dhoni.
With the score at 9/2, Pune should have tried harder to stop the flow of runs and set the field aggressively to try and take more wickets. But they failed in their execution as first Rishabh Pant and then Karun Nair showed maturity in building brilliant partnerships which helped Delhi recover from the early blows.