Rahane rises to the occasion

Sabi Hussain

Tribune News Service

New Delhi, April 5

Call it over-confidence or the need to test their bench strength, Delhi Daredevils went for a big gamble against Rising Pune Supergiants in their last home game here today. They made four changes to their playing XI to include Pawan Negi, Carlos Brathwaite, Jayant Yadav and Imran Tahir in place of skipper Zaheer Khan, Quinton de Kock, Chris Morris and Shahbaz Nadeem.

While Zaheer's exclusion was understandable — he sat out because of an injury — it was quite inexplicable to drop the other three. And as Supergiants chased down the 163-run target for a seven-wicket win, the Daredevils team management must have realised it was a mistake to keep so many key players out of the game.

Supergiants, playing to keep their campaign alive, rode on Ajinkya Rahane's classy 48-ball 63, and his three important partnerships with Usman Khawaja (30), Saurabh Tiwary (21) and skipper MS Dhoni (27) to register only their third win in the tournament.

Rahane and Khawaja, making his IPL debut, stitched together a 50-ball 59-run partnership for the opening wicket before the latter was stumped by Sanju Samson off Amit Mishra. Rahane then starred in a 45-run stand with Tiwary, who was caught by Billings at deep mid-wicket off Imran Tahir.

When Dhoni arrived at the crease, Supergiants needed 57 runs from the last six overs. He immediately smashed Negi for a six, and then took a six and a four off Mohammed Shami to bring the equation down to 17 off 12 balls. In Shami's over, 18th of the innings, Dhoni and Rahane accumulated 20 runs to tilt the game decisively in their favour.

Pune suffered a setback when Dhoni was brilliantly caught by Billings off Tahir at mid-wicket but Thisara Perera (14 not out) smashed two consecutive sixes in the same over to take Supergiants within a touching distance of victory. Rahane, who had anchored the chase, deservedly finished the proceedings by hitting Shami for a four.

Earlier, Daredevils' innings was all about batsmen getting starts, but failing to convert them into big knocks. Opener Sanju Samson hit a 17-ball 20, while Karun Nair hit a 23-ball 32. They slowed down in the middle overs, but some big blows from Brathwaite (20 off 8) and JP Duminy (34) helped them post a fighting 162/7.

Scoreboard

Delhi Daredevils

R Pant b Dinda 2 

S Samson c R Ashwin b Boland 20

K Nair c Perera b Bhatia 32

JP Duminy run out 34

S Billings c Rahane b Bhatia 24 

C Brathwaite c Perera b Boland 20

P Negi not out 19

J Yadav run out 1

M Shami not out 2

Extras (lb 1, w 6, nb 1) 8 

Total (7 wickets; 20 overs) 162

Fall of wickets: 1-13, 2-48, 3-65, 4-110, 5-137, 6-138, 7-143   

Bowling

A Dinda 4-0-34-1

T Perera 1-0-9-0

S Boland 4-0-31-2

R Ashwin 4-0-34-0

R Bhatia 4-0-22-2

M Ashwin 3-0-31-0 

Rising Pune Supergiants 

A Rahane not out 63

U Khawaja st Samson b Mishra 30 

S Tiwary c Billings b Tahir 21

MS Dhoni c Billings b Tahir 27

T Perera not out 14

Extras (lb 1, w 7, nb 3) 11

Total (3 wickets; 19.1 overs) 166

Fall of wickets: 1-59, 2-104, 3-146  

Bowling

J Yadav 4-0-25-0

C Brathwaite 2-0-17-0

M Shami 3.1-0-50-0

A Mishra 4-0-28-1

JP Duminy 1-0-9-0

I Tahir 4-0-26-2

P Negi 1-0-10-0

Today’s match

Hyderabad vs Gujarat

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