Delhi Daredevils and Gujarat Lions, already out of contention to qualify for the Indian Premier League play-off places, contrived to serve up an entertaining game at Green Park, Kanpur.
Chasing Gujarat’s formidable target of 196, Shreyas Iyer (96) missed out on a century but he and Pat Cummins showed enough to take Delhi home by two wickets in a brilliant turnaround.
Gujarat have won only once batting first in their past 13 games. They flattered to deceive yet again when they contrived to lose after having Delhi on the floor at 121-6.
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Put in to bat, Gujarat had defied criticism of their squad selection as Aaron Finch (69 in 39 balls) and Dinesh Karthik (40 in 28) provided a late boost to their total.
With South Africa’s Kagiso Rabada and England’s Jason Roy having left the squad for international commitments, UAE batsman Chirag Suri must have been thinking he was about to finally get his long-awaited chance in the Gujarat line-up.
However, it was leg-spinner Ankit Soni who got the nod, to the surprise of many, including former India opener Aakash Chopra, who said as much on the live TV broadcast.
Delhi, marked by inconsistency this season, were up against it when Cummins joined Iyer at the start of the 15th over. He started with four boundaries off Pradeep Sangwan.
Iyer then hit three successive fours to Dhawal Kulkarni to make it five fours in as many balls. They were not finished there as James Faulkner went for 21 runs in the next over as Delhi scored 50 runs from 18 balls.
Faulkner did eventually get Cummins out and Iyer missed out on his milestone but the damage was done with the partnership of 61 from 4.3 overs. Any hopes of a fightback in the last over with Delhi needing nine to win were dashed when Amit Mishra hit two boundaries for the winnings runs.
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