An Indian Summer, Part 1 (Delhi Daredevils)

[judge]

Looking for a somewhat different challenge to usual on the latest version of the game, I was readily seduced by the chance to take on the challenge of leading Goa CC to something approaching mediocrity in the Indian First Class game, and Delhi Daredevils to glory in the IPL.

With the First Class season not kicking off until October, focus begins very much on the Delhi Daredevils 2016 IPL Campaign.

The squad looks like a good mix of youth and experience, will well known names from the International games, particularly amongst the bowling attack, augmenting some promising looking youngsters.

Batsmen
Mayank Agarwal - Ind - (25) - RHB
J.P Duminy - SA - (31) - LHB - OS
Akhal Herwadkar - Ind - (21) - LHB
Shreyas Iyer - Ind - (21) - RHB
Karun Nair - Ind - (24) - RHB

Wicketkeepers
Sam Billings - ENG - (24) - RHB
Quinton de Kock - SA - (23) - LHB
Rishab Panth - Ind - (18) - LHB
Sanju Samson - Ind - (21) - RHB

All Rounders
Carlos Brathwaite - WI - (27) - RHB - RFM
Mahipul Lormor - Ind - (16) - LHB - SLA
Chris Morris - SA - (28) - RHB - RMF
Pagwan Negi - Ind - (23) - LHB - SLA
Jayant Yadav - Ind - (26) - RHB - OS

Bowlers
Nathan Coulter-Nile - Aus - (28) - RHB - RMF
Imran Tahir - SA - (37) - RHB - LS
Zaheer Khan - Ind - (37) - RHB - LFM
Amit Mishra - Ind - (33) - RHB - LS
Mohammed Shami - Ind - (25) - RHB - RFM
Shahbaz Nadeem - Ind - (26) - RHB - SLA
Pratyush Singh - Ind - (21) - RHB - LS
Pawan Suyal - Ind - (26) - RHB - LFM

Let the festival of cricket begin!

[judge]

We begin with a visit to Eden Gardens to take on the Kolkata Knight Riders.

Our hosts have gone with a strong-looking seam attack that includes Morne Morkel and two members of the West Indies' World T20 winning side, Andre Russell and Jason Holder.

I decided to open the batting with Quinton de Kock along with Shreyas Iyer and go for a spin-heavy attack with Pagwan Negi and J-P Duminy providing back-up to the experienced Imran Tahir and Amit Mishra. Chris Morris and Mohammed Shami would take the new ball.


With the wicket looking like an absolute belter, skipper Duminy elects to bat first.

[judge]

Things start better than I could have hoped. de Kock and Iyer playing sensibly to take the total to 10 without loss after an over each from the new ball pair, then explode into life with a quite scintillating display of stroke-play that races the total to 80/0 by the end of the 6th over.

de Kock completes a 20-ball half century, with Iyer nicely into the 40s.

In the 9th over, it looks as though progress may have been arrested somewhat. Iyer is trapped leg before for 43 from Andre Russell's first delivery, and whilst Mayank Agarwal takes the score into three figures with a nice cover drive for four, he is then badly culpable for running out his partner de Kock off the final ball of the over for 55.

J-P Duminy comes in at 4 and provides a steadying hand along with Agarwal, however the run-rate drops below 10 runs per over thanks in part to some steady bowling from Unadkat and Colin Munro, and also in part to Duminy's steadfast refusal to play shots. He's perfectly content to nurdle.

WIth five overs remaining, Agarwal begins to go for his shots, and is the main reason behind the acceleration in the run-rate. 48 runs are added in the next 3 overs, Agarwal completing his half century in the process off of 27 deliveries.

The final two overs from Munro and Holder are expertly bowled, with just 13 runs being taken from them. Duminy's innings was brought to an end by Holder when he was struck leg before for 31 off the penultimate ball of the innings. Chris Morris came in and managed to clip the final delivery down to the 3rd-man boundary to take the final total to an impressive 209-3. Agarwal was left unbeaten on a superb 75.

[judge]

The Knight Riders' reply began in even more explosive fashion than our own did. Robin Uthappa started blasting the ball to all parts of the ground, with Mohammed Shami in particular getting heavily punished for the stodge that he was bowling. Uthappa's impressive start came to an end in the 4th over when he was lbw to Chris Morris, and although Manish Pandey briefly threatened to carry on where Uthappa had begun, the removal of him and Gautam Gambhir in Morris' next over (both lbw) put the hosts in real trouble at 64/3.

Any hopes of a revival were effectively ended in by the departures of Jackson for 0 by Shami and then Yadav for 4, caught behind off of Tahir's first delivery.

The three spinners, Tahir, Mishra and Negi put a stranglehold on the run-rate. Piyush Chawla departed for 13, caught in the deep in the 10th over with the score at 93, and two overs later Amit Mishra deceived Jason Holder for 1 to make in 99/7.

The Kiwi all-rounder Colin Munro showed some bottle for the fight with an excellent 53 not out, whilst Andre Russell and Jaydev Unadkat showed a little more guile with the bat than some of their predecessors had, however the mountain was too high for them to climb.

Russell fell lbw to Morris, before Mishra tidied things up in the penultimate over removing Unadkat and Morkel in consecutive balls to seal an impressive opening 47 run win for the Daredevils.

[Dick Van Dykes Disco Dog]

Loving this so far mate

[judge]

Thanks very much DVDDD - much appreciated

14th April 2016
Delhi Daredevils vs King's Punjab XI
Indian Premier League


Second game up saw King's Punjab XI travel to the nation's capital fresh from having handed the Gujurat Lions, in their first IPL outing, a rather chastening 9 wicket pounding. Both sides then travelled to the Feroz Shah Kotla in fine fettle and eager to extend their 100% records.

With the pitch showing a little more wear than that at Eden Gardens and a slightly slower outfield, I resisted the chance to make changes to the side and went in with a spin-heavy attack in an unchanged side. Overhead there was a fair amount of cloud cover that suggested there might, possibly, be something for the seamers.

The Punjab XI included Indian star Murali Vijay likely to open the batting, South African internationals Hashim Amla, David Miller and Kyle Abbott and the Australian limited overs expert Glenn Maxwell. It looked a stern test on paper.

J-P Duminy lost the toss on this occasion and the Daredevils were put in to bat.

[judge]

Delhi Daredevils innings:

It would be wrong to describe the opening exchanges of the Daredevils' innings as ponderous. In actual fact, they were wholly pedestrian. Tight bowling from the opening pair Sandeep Sharma and Kyle Abbott restricted Quinton de Kock and Shreyas Iyer to show off their forward defensive and rely on singles to keep the scoreboard ticking over.

Midway through the 5th over, and with the total yet to reach 20, Iyer nicked a good length ball from Abbott to Wriddhiman Saha behind the stumps. The glovesman made no mistake and Iyer was gone for 6. This brought Mayank Agarwal to the crease.

Still, the two batsmen struggled to find either fluency, or the boundary, yet running between the wicket was sharp. However, the lack of boundaries was a concern as the 50 came up off of the first delivery of the 10th over. Suddenly, that seemed to release the pressure valve and suddenly, both players began to find their range.

de Kock took 10 off of Axar Patel's Slow Left Armers before Agarwal took 9 from Mohit Sharma's following over. By the end of the 15th over the total had raced to 113-1 with de Kock passing 50 once again, this time from 38 balls.

Having smashed Rishi Dhawan for a colossal strike down the ground for 6, the Punjab all-rounded extracted revenge the following ball by firmly uprooting de Kock's off-stump with a neat delivery that nipped back into the left hander. The South African had gone for 72. This provoked a mini-collapse as J-P Duminy (1), Chris Morris (5) and Sanju Samson (5) all departed in consecutive overs.

Luckily, as it looked as though the total would struggle much beyond 140, Karun Nair stepped in with some mighty hits for a quickfire 15, whilst Agarwal joined de Kock in passing 50 for the second consecutive match. He was run-out on the final ball for 51, with the total at 155-6.

To be honest, that felt at least fifteen runs short of par. It would take a good performance with the ball to defend it.

[judge]

King's Punjab XI innings:

What were required were quick wickets to stem the flow of any electrifying start from the talented and experienced pair of Amlaand Vijay. In spite of the bilge he had bowled at Eden Gardens with the new ball, Mohammed Shami was once again given the nod to begin.

And this time, he didn't disappoint. After conceding an early single to Amla, he proceeded to tie Vijay in knots before trapping him plum, leg before for a duck with the final ball of the over. In his next over he repeated the trick by removing Amla, who nicked one to de Kock at slip for 3.

Chris Morris, looking on, clearly decided that he liked the look of this wicket taking lark, and so in his second over, and the 4th of the innings, had Singh caught at short leg by Amit Mishra for 10 and followed that up by cleaning up David Miller's stumps emphatically.

18-4 swiftly became 18-5 on the first ball of Shami's next over as the dangerous Glenn Maxwell was caught by Mishra at mid-wicket and things could have got even better had de Kock not dropped Saha at slip off the last ball of the over with the score at 24.

Bizarrely, de Kock repeated the trick off the first ball of the following over from Morris, Saha again reprieved before Rishi Dhawan tucked into some unusually loose bowling on his way to an entertaining, but ultimately fruitless 13-ball 32 runs. His cameo was ended by Tahir, outwitted and spun-out before de Kock finally pouched a catch at slip, capturing the wicket of Saha for 7 off the bowling of Mishra.

Axar Patel then showed some resistance, and launched some hefty blows off of Mishra and Tahir leaving Duminy to return to his seam duo to try and finish things off.

The move worked with both Morris and Shami picking up their 3rd and 4th wickets of the innings respectively leaving Mishra to clean up Patel by tempting him to hoick and mis-time to deep extra cover where Morris was waiting to seal a resounding, and thoroughly impressive 67-run victory.

[judge]

17th April 2016
Royal Challengers Bangalore vs Delhi Daredevils
Indian Premier League

A couple of days rest which included a hefty journey south to Bangalore and the M. Chinnaswamy Stadium to take on Royal Challengers Bangalore.

With two wins in the bank and confidence high and our hosts sat bottom of the table at this early stage of the season, albeit having played just the once so far, the Daredevils' faithful were confident of returning back to the capital city with another two points under our belts.

The pitch showed signs of some cracks on the surface, however there wasn't much expected in the way of uneven bounce. Again, despite the temptation to shuffle the pack a little, the Daredevils went into the game with an unchanged XI.

Despite their opening day loss, the Challengers' batting line-up in particular looked formidable. West Indian powerhouse Chris Gayle was at the top of the order and even if you managed to snare him early on, you then had to wade through AB De-Villiers and Virat Kohli. Shane Watson was another powerful biffer of the ball, listed to come in at 6.

However, for all of their batting majesty, there was a suspicion that their bowling attack might be amongst the weaker in the tournament. Only Stuart Binny and David Wiese had any international experience to speak of, although of course, they did have the option of Watson and Gayle if required to supplement the main attack.

J-P Duminy won the toss and chose to have a bat first.

[judge]

Delhi Daredevils innings:

Clearly, Quentin de Kock and Shreyas Iyer, in particular, had felt the effect of their run fast in the opening stages of the game against King's Punjab XI as they immediately set about the Challengers' bowling attack with relish. Shreenath Aravind's first two overs of military left-arm medium pace went for 20 and 17 runs respectively and whilst his opening partner, the pacier Harshal Patel, managed to retain a modicum of control, as the innings entered it's fifth over, the score was already 46/0.

However, to Aravind's credit and to his skippers' delight, he responded with a real beauty of a third over in his spell. Iyer played a shot too many at the over's first ball, trying to cut a ball that wasn't there to be cut and so nicked behind to the elated Rahul behind the stumps, and then enticing a genuine edge from de Kock off the final ball of the over which landed neatly in the pouch created by Virat Kohli's hands at first slip. 51/2.

With two new batsmen at the crease, it was perhaps inevitable that the run-rate would slow somewhat, and by the end of the 7th over it had dropped below 10 runs/over for the first time.

That did not last for long. Mayank Agarwal pinched a single from the first ball of Iqbal Abdulla's first over before J-P Duminy finally entered into the spirit of T-20 by deciding not to play in test match mode, but to indulge himself in some handsome stroke making. Four consecutive deliveries were dispatched to the boundary in sumptuous style, before going on to score 8 runs off each of the next 3 overs. Agarwal was content to support and keep the scoreboard ticking over with singles.

Duminy passed 50 off of just 23 balls in the 12th over and moved his score on to 63 before being bowled by Stuart Binny's own brand of medium pace swingers at the start of the 15th over with the score at 147.

Karun Nair came in and looked to maintain the scoring rate, which he did with Agarwal, taking the total to 192/3 at the end of the 18th over.

The final two overs of the innings saw all sorts of carnage. Binny had Agarwal caught behind for 47 off the first ball, and Karun Nair caught behind for a swift 36 off the fourth ball of the over. This was followed by Sanju Samson being bowled by Patel for 5 off the first ball and Chris Morris trapped lbw for 1 off the fourth ball of the final over.

The coup-de-grace was applied by Pagwan Negi off of the innings' final delivery when he stepped onto the front foot and launched Patel's good length delivery back over the bowler's head an over the long-on boundary for 6 to take the Daredevils' total just beyond that they achieved on opening day.

210 for 7 looked a good total - almost imposing. However, with Gayle, de-Villiers and Kohli to come, you wouldn't necessarily bet against the home side chasing this big total down.

[Michael H]

Great start to the IPL season Judge. Is this on easy or normal difficulty?

[judge]

Great start to the IPL season Judge. Is this on easy or normal difficulty?

Thanks Michael - so far so good. I'm on Normal difficulty, so the early success is a big surprise given I usually suck enormously at the shorter form of the game.

[judge]

Royal Challengers Bangalore innings:

Clearly, the key to defending even such a grandiose total as 210 against this batting line-up was not only to take wickets on a regular basis but also to try and restrict the flow of runs and frustrate the batsmen. In actual fact, the arithmetic was pretty straightforward. If the bowlers managed to contain the number of boundaries to one an over, the chances of us successfully defending this total were greatly enhanced.

As you'd expect, the bowlers were quickly given a warning shot across the bows as Chris Gayle launched his first ball over the cover boundary for a maximum off of Mohammed Shami. To the bowler's credit, he finished the over strongly and came away with the concession of just 9 runs, which included a wide delivery.

The following sextet of balls were delivered by Chris Morris, and delivered brilliantly too. The second ball of the over jagged back in sharply at Lokesh Rahul and trapped him leg before to bring AB de-Villiers to the crease. He snuck a single off his second ball and after Gayle straight batted a straight one back to Morris, his next delivery was a little wider of off-stump and enticed the big West Indian into an extravagant drive. Again, the ball nipped back in off the seam, tickled the inside edge and was taken by a diving Sanju Samson behind the stumps. Two overs down, and the score was 11/2.

The next three overs were relatively tight from the opening pair, however over number 6, delivered by Morris was seized upon by the Bangalore batsmen, who feasted 16 runs from the over. This prompted a move to spin, and Amit Mishra.

After being driven for four by de-Villiers, the bower responded magnificently firstly having a marginal leg-before appeal turned down, then making the great man play and miss before finally delivering a beauty which spun off the pitch and left the South African swishing at thin air. Behind him came the clatter of stumps. He was bowled and it was 54/3.

We could be forgiven for thinking this was job half done. Virat Kohli was bobbing along at a run a ball, and the Challengers were a long way behind the run rate. However, we hadn't reckoned upon Kedar Jadhav.

Coming in at number 5, he transformed the innings with some elegant and equally destructive strokeplay that destroyed the Daredevils' spin attack. Pagwan Negi's only over was hollered for 17 runs, whilst Imran Tahir also struggled. By the close of the 12th over, the total was suddenly 120/3 and the Challengers were only just off the required run-rate.

For the 13th over, Duminy returned to the seam attack to try and break the partnership. The move worked as Shami had Kohli caught behind for 33 to bring Shane Watson to the crease.

Watson's arrival, not one particularly expert as moving his feet prompted an immediate return to spin, with Duminy himself having his first bowl of the competition. Only five runs were taken, Jadhav completing a 24 ball half century with a fine straight drive. Although wickets failed to fall, Duminy and Mishra put the brakes on the Challengers' momentum. Watson, trying to sweep every ball looked ill-at-ease, particularly in comparison to Jadhav at the other end.

His super innings was to end in the 18th over when he Watson tried to take a suicidal run to cover. Jadhav was run out by about 5 yards, and he stomped off like a bear that had trapped it's fingers under a rock for 75.

By now, with the Challengers still 50 runs behind, the game was as good as won. Watson was put out of his misery by Tahir, who comprehensively bowled him before Stuart Binny departed in the final over - the latest man to be trapped leg before wicket by Chris Morris.

In the final reckoning, the 29 run win was the smallest margin thus far, but still remarkably comfortable. Three wins out of three was beyond my wildest dreams at the start of the competition. The early table is posted here for the sake of posterity!

[Michael H]

Good work. Be interesting when you play the other undefeated teams or have to chase a big total.