Delhi Daredevils vs Kolkata Knight Riders, 26th Match

DD 219/4 (20 Ovs)

KKR 164/9 (20 Ovs)

Delhi Daredevils won by 55 runs

PLAYER OF THE MATCH
Shreyas Iyer

So, DD back on track. Four points in their kitty now. The Double Dynamites - Shaw and Iyer exploded at the top and that propelled DD to a winning score on a wicket that was slightly sluggish. KKR never really were in the chase and it all ended in a 55-run loss for them. The dropped catches in the first innings from KKR also would also be a concern for them. Lots of ponder over for KKR but Delhi after a lot of thinking have finally got it right. This is Kumar Abhisekh Das signing off on behalf of Raju Peethala, Pradeep Krishnamurthy, Hariprasad Sadanandan, Varun Dikshit and Vinod. You peeps put on your thinking cap as CSK take on MI tomorrow.

STAT: Biggest wins for DD in IPL (by runs):
97 v RPs, Pune, 2017
67 v RR, Delhi, 2010
55 v KKR, Delhi, 2018
51 v KXIP, Delhi, 2017

Shreyas Iyer, Man of the Match and winning skipper: Obviously a great feeling getting on the winning side. It is an amazing feeling winning my first game as a skipper. All of us contributed for this win. We wanted to bowl first. So, a nice toss to lose. It gave the batsman the freedom to express themselves. He (Prithvi) has been really batting well since the start of the season. Even in the practice games before the IPL. It is always important how he is starting off. Colin Munro at the top with him added 50 runs and that benefitted for the team. Liam Plunkett is our goto guy. He came up to me and told me he wants to bowl the 16th or 17th over, whichever over he bowled. And I really like it when my bowlers come up to me and talk. It is really good.

Trent Boult (purple cap) - Runs on the board, credit to the new captain who added many partnerships and got a big score. We bowled according to the plan and it was job well done. The wicket was a lot quicker today, we didn't plan to bowl those many short balls. We were not too predictable to a guy like Russell. He (Iyer) batted tremendously well, some good communication with the experienced guys and he will be very stoked with what happened in the middle.

Dinesh Karthik - "220 is a big task, if the dew had come in, it would have made it easy for us but today was that sort of a day where there was no dew. I thought they really batted much better than us. If Russell starts hitting, he gives us hope but he is also a human being. We need to put our hands up and say we didn't play good cricket. Three spinners doesn't generally go for a lot of runs. I am comfortable in bowling them in the powerplay. I think we really need to wake up in the fielding department. We need to improve our fielding standard and that should turn around the things for us".

And when KKR came out to bat, Maxwell picked up Lynn in the second over of the innings. That was followed by a plan to bowl short. The speedsters - Boult, Avesh Khan and Plunkett put the plan into place and picked up wickets in the middle overs. Kolkata were always behind the 8-ball and it was only Russell's little cameo which ignited a few hopes but they were quashed out soon. In the end, a huge win for Delhi by 55 runs. Stay tuned for the presentations.

The Delhi camp is up and happy. Little smiles come up on the faces of Delhi players as well. They know the importance of this win. A loss here and it would have been a dead end in the journey of IPL 2018 but DD are still alive. They scored 219 batting first and that I guess set the game for them. First Prithvi Shaw, then Shreyas Iyer ensured that DD put it across the KKR side. 29 runs of the last over by Iyer off Mavi was the telling blow. It just put it beyond KKR it seemed.