Delhi Daredevils manage a consolation win against Cape Cobras

By Tanmay S
for Cricketain.com

Published: October 20, 2009

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Firoz Shah Kotla, Delhi: Having already ousted themselves from the Airtel Champions League T20, the Delhi Daredevils managed to gain a consolation win against the in-form team Cape Cobra in a relatively boring and low scoring game. Cape Cobras, known for their aggressive batting and building big scores, registered an innings score of 84, the lowest in the tournament. Delhi Daredevils defeated Cape Cobras by a comprehensive 30 runs in a spinner-dominated game. There was no great performance worth mentioning by the standards of T20 cricket.

Blame it all on the pitch! There was no grass on the pitch whatsoever. The ball wasn’t coming on to the bat and the track offered a low bounce to the ball. T20 batters hate such pitches and bowlers love them.

Andrew Puttick, the Cape Cobras skipper won the toss and elected to field.

For the Delhi Daredevils, Dilshan opened the batting along with skipper Gautam Gambhir and both batsmen failed terribly in front of a meagre home crowd. Gambhir continued his dismal form in the tournament. Gambhir, who has been awarded ICC Test Player of 2009 award, has produced a shameful 18 runs from the four games he played at an average of 4.5. As for this game, he was clean bowled by Kleinveldt during the second over for a miserable duck. 

Two deliveries before, Kleinveldt also shattered Dilshan’s stumps and Daredevils were reduced to 4 for 2 in the second over. Manoj Tiwary and Dinesh Karthik managed to not give their wickets away as they scored at a slow rate and took the total for 44 in the 9th over when Tiwary was bowled by a deceiving delivery from Henderson. Immediately, Karthik was run out by Canning but he relieved the crowds somewhat with an aggressive 23 off 24 deliveries. Owais Shah also contributed to this run out. Shah played a sensible innings of unbeaten 39, the highest total for Daredevils. Kleinveldt and Justin Ontong claimed 2 wickets each fort the Cape Cobras.

Cape Cobras, very unlike the other matches they played in the tournament, displayed a disappointing batting performance.

Andrew Puttick opened the batting along with Herschelle Gibbs. Gibbs along with Ryan Canning made their way back into the team for Cobras. Expectations from Gibbs are always high but he failed to deliver. Gambhir had judged the pitch conditions in Delhi well and knew that using a spinner will make things easier for him. Dilshan took the first bite of the cherry and took Gibbs’ wicket on a straight delivery. Gibbs went down as leg before wicket without scoring any run, on the only delivery he faced.

Andrew Puttick departed soon scoring only 6 runs as he was clean bowled by Nannes. Henry Davids and JP Duminy gave some momentum to the Cobras innings as they scored 22 and 14 respectively. Thereafter, the entire batting line up collapsed.

Cobras’ innings was wrapped up for only 84 runs during the 18th over, the least the tournament has yet seen. For Daredevils, Nannes achieved the best bowling figures, conceding 19 runs for 4 wickets in four overs. Dilshan, Mishra and Nagar claimed 2 wickets each. Cobras lost the match, leaving an already ousted Daredevils on a high note.

This loss against the Daredevils might be a blessing in disguise for the Cobras as they get to play on a far better track in Hyderabad against Trinidad and Tobago.

Brief Scores: Delhi Daredevils 119 for 4 (Shah 39*) beat Cape Cobras 86 all out (Nannes 3-19) by 30 runs

Player of the match: Owais Shah of Delhi Daredevils

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