Visakhapatnam: Faf Du Plessis’ excellent fifty and Mitchell Starc’s five-wicket haul were the lead acts in Delhi Capitals’ comprehensive seven-wicket win over Sunrisers Hyderabad in the IPL match here on Sunday.
Du Plessis (50, 27b, 3×4, 3×6) added 81 runs with his opening partner Jake Fraser-McGurk (38, 32b) as the Capitals overhauled Hyderabad’s inadequate 163 all out in 16 overs, for their second win on the trot.
Once DC openers made a quick start off the block, the result was never in doubt, but their approach was vastly different.
Du Plessis wound the clock back with some stunning shots, such as a straight six off Pat Cummins.
But at other end, McGurk was struggling for his timing, partly because of his exaggerated back-lift and partly because of his desire to hit all the ball out of the park.
However, his senior partner was willing to do the heavy-lifting and brought up his fifty in 26 balls.
The South African thus became the third 40-plus batter to score a 50 in the IPL after Adam Gilchrist and Chris Gayle.
But the alliance was snapped when debutant leg-spinner Zeeshan Ansari (3/42) dismissed Du Plessis, who departed after Wiaan Mulder took a brilliant running catch to the join the list of stunning catchers in the evening.
The impressive 25-year-old Ansari, who once was a part of India Under-19 World Cup squad which also had Rishabh Pant, Ishan Kishan and Washington Sundar back in the day, soon got rid of McGurk and KL Rahul in quick succession to reduce DC to 115 for three in the 12th over but that was not even enough to create artificial excitement.
Abhishek Porel (34 not out, 18 balls) and Tristan Stubbs (21 not out, 14 balls) joined for a 51-run stand for the fourth wicket to push SRH to their second successive defeat in this IPL.
Earlier, Aniket Verma made a free-flowing 74 off 41 balls (5×4, 6×6) but their excessive aggression and five-wicket man Starc forced Sunrisers Hyderabad to settle for a woefully sub-par 163 all out.
Aniket showed how to capitalise a smooth pitch with a wisely accelerated innings but there were not many takers for that route in the Sunrisers camp.
The Hyderabad side’s beginning itself was flawed, losing four wickets in the Power Play that earned them 58 runs.
Abhishek Sharma barely heeded to Travis Head’s call for a single and started late, only to see Vipraj Nigam’s underarm throw rattling the stumps before he crossed the crease.
Head himself did not last too long. The left-hander wanted to steer his Australian teammate Mitchell Starc (5/34) over the wicketkeeper’s head but the feeble edge nestled in the hands of Rahul.
It was the sixth time Starc dismissed Head across all approved competitions.
In his previous over, Starc struck twice to jettison Ishan Kishan (2) and Nitish Kumar Reddy (0) to reduce SRH to 25 for three.
Kishan tried to cut a pacy delivery but offered a simple catch to Tristan Stubbs at deep backward point, while Nitish’s pull off an off-cutter ended in the hands of Axar Patel at mid-on.
But Aniket held the stumbling SRH innings together through a 77-run alliance with Heinrich Klaasen (32, 19b) until the latter fell to a brilliant catch by Nigam off Mohit Sharma (1/25).
Aniket, waited for spinners to come into attack and Axar was his favoured whipping boy — smacking him for four sixes in all.
The 22-year-old from Madhya Pradesh, who was dropped on six by Porel off Axar, fetched his fifty off 34 balls, his first in a nascent four-match IPL career.
The right-hander scored runs at a strike-rate of 194 against the spinners, and was more cautious against pacers but still struck them around at 148.
Aniket looked set for a hundred but Fraser-McGurk’s athletic catch, which was a feature of Delhi’s fielding on the day, in the deep off Kuldeep Yadav (3/22) ended his stint.
