IPL 2016: Rising Pune Supergiants blaze away to win over Delhi Daredevils in rain-affected game

The Rising Pune Supergiants’ bowling has been a failure this IPL so much so that Mahendra Singh Dhoni has often said that it has been consistent this season “though on the negative side”. Consistently inconsistent is what best describes RPS’ bowling.

Disproving their captain on Tuesday night, their bowlers stepped up their performance to restrict Delhi Daredevils to just 121/6. Rising Pune Supergiants replied strongly at 57/1 when rain interrupted at 10.35pm. When play resumed after a 55-minute interruption, RPS were on their way to victory but there was a second interruption 10 minutes later, at which time RPS were 76/1, much ahead of the Duckworth-Lewis par score of 57. Play was called off just before midnight, declaring RPS victors by 19 runs.

Yet again, it may have seemed a tough pitch to bat at the YS Rajasekhara Reddy ACA-VDCA Cricket Stadium here, but it was more DD’s batting failure that made RPS bowlers look even more outstanding.

In the run-chase, Rising Pune Supergiants openers Ajinkya Rahane and Usman Khawaja were off to a blazing start, sharing 31 off 22 deliveries to further reiterate that the pitch was sound for batting if shown the right approach. Also, they had to score fast to be ahead of DD at any stage as rain was forecast during the second innings. As predicted, the clouds opened up into the eighth over of RPS’s chase, at which time they were 15 ahead of the Duckworth-Lewis par score of 42.

Rahane was in an attacking mood, scoring 42 not out off 36 deliveries with five fours and a six.

Click here for the full coverage of the IPL 2016, including commentary, fixtures, scorecards and more.

A good two hours and 20 minutes before the start of the match, Daredevils batting coach Sridharan Sriram had a look at the pitch, went on his knees, tapped the surface with both his hands and indicated that it was hard and was good for batting. It was a different matter that his batsmen failed to put up enough runs on the board.

There’s no taking credit away from the RPS bowlers, though. Ashok Dinda and IPL debutant Deepak Chahar contained the Daredevils openers on a pitch that had good bounce and that was favouring the batsmen to play their shots, unlike the low-scoring game on the same pitch that Mumbai Indians and Kings XI Punjab were involved in five evenings ago.

Dinda has been inconsistent with his wicket-taking abilities. But on Tuesday, he provided the early breakthroughs, first by trapping DD’s dangerous and in-form opener Quinton de Kock leg before with a straight one to which the left-handed played all over. De Kock’s dismissal was set up in the previous over by the Rajasthan Ranji Trophy pacer Chahar, who beat him with two successive deliveries that also rose sharply, surprising the batsman.

Dinda struck again in his third over when he had the struggling Shreyas Iyer sky a short ball to square leg. This was Iyer’s fifth single digit score in six outings this IPL that included three ‘ducks’. The manner in which Karun Nair played for his 43-ball 41, pulling and driving over the infield, showed that it was not that bad a pitch that warranted a 121 total.

The RPS medium-pacers bowled tidily upfront, justifying Dhoni’s decision to bowl first, it having more to do with the thunder storm that was forecast during the game. That RPS restricted Daredevils to 28/2 in Power Play and to 42/2 in nine overs before spin was introduced must have pleased Dhoni.

The spinners took over from the seamers, leg-spinner Adam Zampa (3/21), who on his previous game at this venue took this season’s best figures of 6/19 against Sunrisers Hyderabad last week, picking up a wicket in each of his first three overs while Ravichandran Ashwin at the other end was equally tight, though not successful.

DD crossed three-figures only in the final over that yielded 23 runs including two fours and two sixes off the final four, Chris Morris making the most of the juicy full tosses that Thisara Perera fed him with.