After losing their opening games, Delhi Daredevils and Rajasthan Royals were all ready to take on each other for gaining a momentum on the points table. Delhi Daredevils won the toss and skipper Gautam Gambhir elected to bowl first keeping in mind the dew factor at the Sawai Mansingh Stadium. The pitch also offered a bit of a movement and had something for the bowlers.

Team RR lost D’Arcy Short and Ben Stokes in the first 5 overs of the match. Captain Ajinkya Rahane was already on the other end making runs for the team and then came Sanju Samson who carried his form from the last match and both put up a good show for Team RR. However, Delhi Daredevils’ spinner Shahbaz Nadeem halted the dream run and got rid of Sanju Samson on 37 off 22 balls. Rahane walked to the pavilion when the team was on 112. Jos Buttler kept fighting and tied building up the innings with Rahul Tripathi. However, Mohammed Shami sent Buttler packing on a Yorker. Rain interrupted the play on the 17.5 over and after a good wait of about an hour and a half, the game was reduced to 6 over and the target posted for 71 runs. Watch the video highlights of the game here!

DD lost their first wicket on the first ball in the form of Colin Munro for a duck. Glen Maxwell and Rishabh Pant performed in patches and hit a few shots here and there. But none of it could save the game. Wickets fell at regular intervals. Maxwell scored 17 off 12 balls, Pant scored 20 off 14 and Vijay Shankar made 3 runs off 3. Full marks to Jaydev Unadkat and Dhaval Kulkarni for keeping their cool during the match. Check out the points table here.

Gautam Gambhir said, “It was a beautiful wicket to bat on. One of the flattest wickets. Thought if we could contain them to 170, we had a good chance. We had to go from ball 1. There are hardly any balls, difficult for our batsmen."

Ajinkya Rahane was obviously elated with the team's victory and said, “Good way to start at home. We thought 71 was difficult to chase, focusing on things we could control. When we were batting, we thought 165 to 170 would be good. T20 is all about starting from zero, whether we win or lose."

 

(The above story first appeared on LatestLY on Apr 12, 2018 01:36 AM IST. For more news and updates on politics, world, sports, entertainment and lifestyle, log on to our website latestly.com).