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The Delhi Daredevils ended their poor start to the new Indian Premier League season with a stunning 3 wicket win over league leaders Pune Warriors at Navi Mumbai on Sunday evening. Put into bat, the Warriors posted an excellent 187/5 in their 20 overs on the back of outstanding 60s by Jesse Ryder and Yuvraj Singh. Delhi got off to an excellent start in response, adding 75 for the opening wicket, and despite losing wickets at regular intervals saw vital contributions from Venugopal Rao (31), Aaron Finch (25) and James Hopes (13*) down the order to register an incredible come from behind win.

Delhi, chasing their first points of IPL Season 4, won the toss and elected to chase. The visitors made three changes to their side with James Hopes, Matthew Wade and Umesh Yadav coming in for the South African duo Roelof van der Merve and Morne Morkel, and Unmukt Chand. Pune also made one change despite the winning combination they have going, with last minute pick Murali Kartik making way for Abhishek Jhunjhunwala.

Delhi surprisingly tossed the ball to Venugopal Rao first up to bowl his part-time offbreaks, and Jesse Ryder after seeing the early balls do nothing promptly smacked the fourth and fifth deliveries of the over into the stands. It was Rao's first and last over. At the other end Graeme Smith (12) continued to threaten to find some form, but after smacking a couple of boundaries off Ashok Dinda, the Protea top edged a pull to the fielder at third man. Ryder meanwhile carried on his merry way, taking a liking to Irfan Pathan and Umesh Yadav's medium pace hitting 4 fours and a six off successive overs. Mithun Manhas, a former Delhi boy, joined in the fun as Yadav's first over went for 21 and Pune raced to 63/1 at the end of the powerplay.

Pune continued to attack right through their innings, but lost Manhas and Ryder in consecutive overs, the former making 20 from 18, while the latter plundered 60 from just 27 balls at an incredible strike rate of 222.22. Pune were 98/3 at the end of 10 overs and a score close to 200 was on the cards despite them having to build the innings again from scratch.

Robin Uthappa and Yuvraj Singh were assigned that task and one would have expected the awesome twosome to continue to lace the bowling. However, Uthappa, so often the architect of big IPL scores failed to get going, falling to Shahbaz Nadeem for 4 from 10 balls. Mohnish Mishra, Uthappa's partner in crime from their big win against Kochi in the last game also failed to ignite, making 7 from 11 as the Pune innings lost momentum. Yuvraj Singh fought a lone hand from the other end, making a vital 66 from 32 balls. The last over from Dinda conceded 26 and undid all the good work Delhi had done to claw themselves back from the depths of despair at the half-way stage. Yuvraj carted Dinda for 4,6,6,6 on the last four balls of the innings including a wide thrown in between as Pune powered their way to 187/5.

Delhi's chances at success rested squarely on their opening pair of Virender Sehwag and David Warner. After a couple of quiet early overs from which they had scored just 12, the Daredevils came alive in the third over as David Warner spanked Wayne Parnell for three boundaries. Sehwag joined in the fun in the next over with a couple of boundaries of his own. Warner showed that he had a liking for South African pacers when he launched into Alfonso Thomas, twice depositing him into the stands. Delhi ended the powerplay with 67 runs to their credit and were very much in the game with all 10 wickets intact. However, with another 121 still needed to win in 14 overs there was plenty of work still to do for the Daredevils.

Sadly for the Dardevils, they lost both set batsmen in the next few overs. First to go was Warner, run out for 46 (28b) while attempting to steal a non-existent second. Sehwag followed his opening partner back a few overs later for 37, bowled by Jesse Ryder. At the half-way stage Delhi were in an identical position as Pune, with 98 runs on the board, having lost a wicket less, but unlike the Warriors they didn't have someone of the calibre of Yuvraj Singh to follow.

Delhi sent in Irfan Pathan and Naman Ojha at 3 and 4, respectively, but both batsmen perished in one magical Yuvraj Singh over where India's man with the golden arm picked up 2 wickets for the loss of 1 run. Pathan was too slow, scoring 14 from 16 balls, which Ojha made 11 from 9. 23-year old wicketkeeper batsman Matthew Wade and Venugopal Rao were entrusted with the job of getting Delhi their maiden win, but Wade did not trouble the scorers much, making three before being adjudged leg before off Rahul Sharma. The game was slipping away from Delhi at 120/5.

Venugopal Rao came out and struck a couple of sixes to keep Delhi still alive in the contest and the Daredevils needed 41 from the last 3 overs to steal an unlikely win. Aaron Finch joined in the strokeplay smashing Shrikant Wagh for consecutive sixes in the 18th over. Twenty runs in all came from that over and Delhi were suddenly in the driver's seat with 21 needed from the last 2 overs.

Yuvraj Singh came back on to bowl his final over, the 19th of the innings, and tilted the scales immediately back in his team's favour by dismissing Finch first ball, caught and bowled for 25. Venugopal Rao, though was much better equipped at taking on the spinners and hit Yuvraj for a six and a four on consecutive deliveries. With 8 needed from 7 balls, Rao's belligerence got the better of him as the batsman tried to finish the match in a hurry, but failed to clear the fielder in the deep. Rao's 20 ball burst of 31 meant that Delhi needed 8 from the last over with Aussie allrounder James Hopes on strike. The veteran Queenslander showed that he was too good to be batting down at no.8, smashing a six and a four off the first two deliveries of Jesse Ryder's final over to take Delhi to an incredible win.

Despite the defeat Pune stay top of the league on 4 points, while Delhi take one step up from bottom spot, relegating the Royal Challengers Bangalore to the ignominy of last place. However, with only 2 points separating all 10 teams, it is quite evident that the League is wide open this year and another set of games could see the table looking just the opposite. Pune stay in Mumbai for their next game, though leave the comfort of the DY Patil Stadium for the hostile environs of the Wankhede Stadium where they run into the powerful Mumbai Indians on Wednesday afternoon. Delhi too have an early start on Tuesday as they return home to take on the Deccan Chargers.·

Teams:

PW: JD Ryder, GC Smith, M Manhas, Yuvraj Singh, RV Uthappa, MD Mishra, AA Jhunjhunwala, R Sharma, SB Wagh, WD Parnell, AC Thomas.

DD: V Sehwag, DA Warner, AJ Finch, MS Wade, NV Ojha, Y Venugopal Rao, JR Hopes, IK Pathan, S Nadeem, AB Dinda, U Yadav

Mini Scorecard:

Pune Warriors 187/5 (20 overs, 9.35rpo)
Yuvraj Singh 66* (32) S Nadeem 2-39
Jesse Ryder 60 (27) A Dinda 2-42

Delhi Daredevils 190/7 (19.2 overs, 9.82rpo)
David Warner 46 (28) Y Singh 4-29
Virender Sehwag 37 (23) R Sharma 1-29

Delhi win by 3 wickets

Photograph by: YellowMonkey/Blnguyen