Tillekaratne Dilshan's unbeaten knock of 52 runs from 46 balls helped Delhi Daredevils to defeat Deccan Chargers in an IPL encounter played at Centurion on Thursday (April 30). Chasing a victory target of 149 runs, Daredevils won the match in 18.4 overs by losing four wickets. Dilshan was greatly helped by wicket-keeper batsman Dinesh Krathik. Both Dilshan and Karthik cemented a fourth wicket partnership of 79 runs. Karthik scored 41 runs. Apart form them, Daredevils openers Virender Sehwag (20 off 11 balls) and Gautam Gambhir (17 off 15 balls) played their part.

 

After winning the toss, Daredevils captain Virender Sehwag elected to field first. Deccan Charges started their innings badly by losing both the openers, Adam Gilchrist (8 off 5 balls) and Herschelle Gibbs (0 off 4 balls), in quick succession. Charges kept on losing wickets at regular intervals and in the end managed to score 148 runs for the loss of nine wickets. The fifth wicket partnership between T Suman (23 off 14 balls) and Dwayne Smith (48 off 28 balls) helped Chargers to reach a decent total.

 

Azhar Bilakhia (23) and Rohit Sharma (16) also helped Chargers to maintain high run rate. Venugopal Rao (16 off 15 balls) also played some good shots at the final stage of the innings. Dirk Nannes from Daredevils was the pick of the bowlers with two wickets for 16 off four overs. This was the first defeat of the Deccan Chargers in the tournament so far.