By IANS,
Durban : Deccan Chargers committed what their captain Adam Gilchrist termed “cricket suicide” by losing a match they should have won against Delhi Daredevils in the Indian Premier League (IPL) at the Kingsmead here Wednesday.
Chasing 174, Deccan Chargers were cruising at 149 for three, thanks to dazzling knocks from Gilchrist (64) and Andrew Symonds (41). But they lost way by losing seven wickets in 17 balls for 12 runs, as Man of the Match Rajat Bhatia picked up four for 15 and Pradeep Sangwan grabbed three for 18 to snatch the win by dismissing Deccan Chargers for 161 runs in 19.4 overs.
With the 12-run win, Delhi Daredevils are virtually through to the semi-finals as they are sitting on top of the league with 16 points from 10 matches while Deccan Chargers are third with 12 points from 11 games.
Put in to bat, Delhi Daredevils’s tested opening pair of Gautam Gambhir (19) and David Warner (4) failed to give them a good start.
Gambhir hung around till the 10th over but failed to justify his stay as Tillekaratne Dilshan (37) did the bulk of the scoring in their 50-run partnership for the second wicket. Dilshan did the scoring through boundaries, hitting seven fours and a six in his 18-ball stay.
AB de Villiers (44) continued his power hitting to keep up the run rate while skipper Virender Sehwag (11), who returned to the side after missing four games, failed to fire.
In the end, it was the fiery and unbeaten 23-ball 44 from Dinesh Karthik that helped Delhi Daredevils put up a competitive total on board.
Karthik didn’t provide any opportunities to the Deccan Chargers bowlers and was severe on the experienced Chaminda Vaas. In the last over, Karthik hit Vaas for 23 runs that included two sixes and a four. Karthik spanked four fours and three sixes during his innings.
Deccan Chargers, who had displayed high standards on the field, paid heavily for dropping easy catches. Symonds was the culprit on one occasion when he dropped a sitter to give Sehwag a life.
In reply, Gilchrist blazed away to 64 in just 33 balls, hitting five sixes and as many fours.
Symonds atoned for his dropped catch with his powerful hitting and scored 41 runs from just 22 balls. With Ravi Teja (27), Symonds added crucial 63 runs for the fourth wicket to keep Deccan Chargers on track.
But Bhatia pulled back things for Daredevils by picking up the wickets of Symonds and Dwayne Smith in a space of three deliveries. Deccan Chargers’ lower order collapsed like a pack of cards to gift an easy win to Daredevils.