IPL 2017, DD vs KXIP: Five mistakes that led to DD's miserable defeat
Kings XI Punjab once again exposed Delhi Daredevils’ weak leak – their batting – to register a thumping victory at the PCA stadium, Mohali.
After losing the toss, Delhi’s batsmen fell flat on a bowling friendly wicket and lost all ten wickets for a paltry score of 67. Their strong bowling line-up had nothing to work with and Delhi lost the match by 10 wickets.
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This was their fifth consecutive defeat of this season while Punjab claimed their fourth victory of the season, strengthening their bid for a play-off spot.
The evening was full of blunders for Delhi Daredevils and we look at the five reasons that led to their disastrous defeat today.
#1 Poor application from the batsmen
Maxwell had no hesitation to bowl first on this Mohali wicket as it was evident that the pitch would assist the bowlers. The new ball swung while the odd delivery also stopped on the pitch.
To survive in such conditions, the batsmen had to trust their technique and tighten their defence. Instead, the batting line up of Delhi offered a perfect demonstration of how not to bat on such a wicket.
Sam Billings made the mistake of playing away from his body early in the innings and was out caught behind to a ball that moved slightly. Next was Sanju Samson who tried to play across the line.
On the fifth ball of the third over, Sandeep Sharma pitched the delivery on middle stump and moved it away from the batsman. But Samson had already committed to the shot and all he managed to get was an edge which Mohit Sharma caught at mid-off.
In the fifth over, Shreyas Iyer couldn’t control his urge to drive at a full pitched delivery. The ball, after pitching, got stuck in the pitch forcing Iyer to mistime his stroke. Sandeep Sharma took a sharp catch in his own follow through to end Iyer’s misery.
Then Karun Nair and Rishabh Pant failed to get bat on ball and lost their wickets to spin. The rest of the batting order joined the bandwagon and perished due to poor stroke making.