Hyderabad: Riding on Shikhar Dhawan's blistering (78 off 50) innings and Marcus Stoinis' (38 off 27 balls) initial burst, Delhi Capitals (DC) have scored 189-3 and will now fancy their place in the finals after toppling SRH's batting line-up in the second innings at Sheikh Zyed stadium in Abu Dhabi on Sunday.
After winning the toss, Iyer made a surprising change and showed his guile as captain bringing Stoinis up the order. The move paid off as Stoinis took every SRH bowler to the cleaners.
Shikhar too joined the party and at the end of the powerplay, DC were 65-0. By this time, Stoinis had scored 33 off 21 deliveries and Shikhar raced to 30 off 16 deliveries. Team's desperation for quick runs showed that they wanted to up the scoreline as much as possible before the sphere was handed over to Rashid Khan.
The duo batted aggressively but with caution as they went with their respective innings. They took on T Natarajan, Rashid Khan, Sandeep Sharma and scored with utmost ease. But the second ball of the ninth over of Rashid Khan proved fatal for the stroke player, Stoinis, who was bowled by Khan.
At the end of 10 overs, DC were off to a flying start scoring 102-1.
DC's skipper, Iyer (21 off 20) too looked determined to score quickly but was not able to connect the ball with his bat and eventually lost his wicket to star all-rounder Jason Holder.
Iyer was caught by Manish Pandey at mid-off. DC's captain has been the talking point this season as he has been unable to convert good starts into a big score for his team.
Cometh the hour, cometh the Hetmyer! When DC looked well on way to score big, Shimron Hetmyer (42 off 21 balls) took the centre stage, hammering and punishing Hyderabadi bowlers. Holder, Natarajan, Nadeem -- no one was spared.
In the midst of all this, Shikhar held fort at one end. Not only was he saving wickets, the left-handed batsman also scored quickly. By the end of 18 overs, he had scored 77 runs off 48 deliveries. 18th over for DC was crucial as they pushed the accelerator to its extreme and the Hetmyer-Dhawan duo scored four boundaries in that over.
Dhawan, who looked to reach his third century was adjudged lbw off Sandeep Sharma. SRH did make a comeback in the last two overs where DC were unable to score boundaries. What looked like 200 plus for Delhi ended at 189.
