Delhi Daredevils

Delhi Daredevils moved off the bottom of the IPL 2018 table after beating Rajasthan Royals by four runs via the Duckworth-Lewis method on Wednesday.

Sky Sports Cricket provided a summary of the rain-interrupted match:

Here's a look at the current table, followed by a recap of the best of the action.

2018 IPL Table (Team, Played, Points, Net Run Rate)

1. Chennai Super Kings, 8, 12, +0.553

2. Sunrisers Hyderabad, 8, 12, +0.514

3. Kings XI Punjab, 7, 10 +0.228

4. Kolkata Knight Riders, 8, 8, +0.110

5. Royal Challengers Bangalore, 8, 6, -0.301

6. Delhi Daredevils, 9, 6, -0.450

7. Rajasthan Royals, 8, 6, -0.726

8. Mumbai Indians, 8, 4, -0.059

Wednesday Recap

The game was delayed due to rain and thunderstorms, which saw it initially reduced to an 18-over match.

Rajasthan Royals won the toss and elected to bowl with Delhi Daredevils sending out Prithvi Shaw and Colin Munro as their openers.

It was a tough start for Delhi who lost Munro for a duck as he was caught by Jos Buttler off a Dhawal Kulkarni inswinger.

However, the Daredevils rallied and were inspired by some brilliant hitting from Prithvi Shaw, Shreyas Iyer and Rishabh Pant. The trio powered Delhi to 196/6 after 17.1 overs before bad weather intervened again.

Cricket statistician Mohandas Menon showed how impressive the youngsters were:

When the covers came off, Rajasthan Royals were left to chase a revised run total of 151 off 12 overs and opened with D'Arcy Short and Buttler.

Buttler was in inspirational form as he hit 54 off just 18 balls to net a new club record, per ESPNcricinfo:

He eventually fell to Amit Mishra, but Short kept going and managed 44. However, it was not enough for Rajasthan who fell just short in a dramatic finish.

It's a much-needed win for Delhi Daredevils who are back in action on Saturday when they take on Sunrisers Hyderabad. Meanwhile, Rajasthan drop to seventh in the table and face Kings XI Punjab on Sunday.

Sometimes, even as a journalist, you can't help but wish for something to happen the way you want it to.

You want to write about something the way you anticipated it, or perhaps also because of your desire to describe a happy ending; a sportsman returning to form against all odds, defying his critics.

For much of his 41-ball innings on Sunday against the Kings XI Punjab, Kevin Pietersen provided that hope to journalists eager to pen a remarkable comeback.

Ahead of their last game of the season, the Delhi Daredevils' position at the bottom of the table was already assured, following a miserable campaign that included just two wins in 13 matches.

But if Pietersen signed off with a vintage knock, especially after all that had transpired following England's 5-0 defeat in the Ashes earlier this year, it would provide a lot of fodder for us greedy scribes.

Pietersen tried his best to satisfy us. After an otherwise miserable IPL season, the England discard was just about beginning to find some form towards the end, with a couple of back-to-back forties to his name going into Sunday's game.

After Delhi were asked to bat by Punjab in the fourth over of the innings, KP provided the first sign that something special was in the offing. Fast bowler Parvinder Awana delivered a slower leg cutter, but Pietersen spotted it early and thwacked it over the bowler's head for four.

Everything about the shot oozed the class that had been associated with Pietersen throughout his decade-long international career, which brought him over 13,000 runs across all formats.

Pietersen came forward, transferring his weight onto the front foot like clockwork and elegantly gave the ball a lift, using the full face of the bat.

In the very next over, Pietersen came face-to-face with Mitchell Johnson, the bowler who had almost single-handedly destroyed England in the Ashes. While both players had been their respective teams' best performers during that series, it was ironic how their careers took such different paths following it.

Pietersen, not one to dwell on the past, greeted his former contemporary with two of the most sublime and artistic cover drives you would ever see coming from his blade: the first on the front foot and the second one leaning slightly on the back foot followed by an aesthetically dismissive swish of the willow.

But for all his artistry, Pietersen's innings was not the picture perfect time at the crease that you would have hoped for. He could have easily been dismissed twice off the inside edge, but he got two boundaries instead.

In the very first over of the innings, he almost ran his partner Mayank Agarwal out, before eventually succeeding in doing so with Manoj Tiwary.

It wasn't a perfect innings, but that wouldn't have mattered, would it? What mattered was how far he went. Once he crossed his first half-century of the season, just as us journalists had begun to cook up catchy headlines bordering on the melodramatic—with a complete disregard to the result of the match—he was given out LBW in what was a slightly dubious umpiring call.

Pietersen's last innings in IPL 7 read 58 off 41 balls, including nine boundaries. He had tried his best to give us the fairy-tale comeback, but he had been undone by an arguably contentious umpiring call and the shockingly poor form of the rest of his teammates. Apart from him, not a single Delhi player managed to score more than 13 runs.

Did Pietersen play well? He sure did. He scored his first 50 in the IPL after 12 innings. But could you classify it as a comeback? Perhaps not. Because, at the end of the day, no matter how much you try and oversee it, the result of the match and the way the team is performing matters when making such calls.

The fact is that the Daredevils went on to record their ninth straight defeat of the season, and Pietersen was unable to inspire his team to lift itself off the bottom of the table.

He had left it too late. The comeback and all the accompanying melodramatic headlines will have to wait another year.

Three months after his unceremonious sack from the England cricket team, Kevin Pietersen provided a momentous reply as he led the Delhi Daredevils to their maiden Indian Premier League title.

England's all-time leading run scorer across formats, who was banished from the team after their humiliating 5-0 defeat in the Ashes Down Under, despite being their highest run scorer in the series, ridiculed the decision of the England and Wales Cricket Board by smashing 600 runs in the IPL, as he ably guided his team to victory in their seventh attempt.

If only dreams and fairy tales came true.

The above scenario would have been the stuff of epic tales of sporting comebacks. Unfortunately for Pietersen and Delhi Daredevils fans, it was too good to be true. And how!

Delhi began their 2014 season from scratch. After failing to finish higher than third in six attempts and finishing at the bottom of the table last season, they decided not to retain a single player before the player auction—the only team to do so.

Thus, the team had its full quota of around $10 million to spend on a completely new squad. Delhi purchased Dinesh Karthik, a wicketkeeper-batsman who played a vital role in helping Mumbai Indians to win the IPL title last year, for over $2 million, and then spent another $1.5 million on Pietersen, who was later named skipper.

Delhi shored up their squad with other players of repute such as JP Duminy, Ross Taylor, Murali Vijay, Mohammed Shami, Nathan Coulter-Nile, Quinton de Kock, Jaydev Unadkat and Manoj Tiwary. It was a squad that looked capable of mounting a serious challenge.

But as the tournament began, you began to realise that the Daredevils were expecting all their daredevilry from just one player—their prolific captain. With no international cricket in the horizon, he was supposed to take IPL 2014 by storm. This was supposed to be his season, where everyone expected him to make England regret their decision to axe him.

Pietersen had to sit out the first three matches of the season due to an injured finger. Delhi lost two out of those three games. His return for the fourth game raised a lot of hopes, but all they got to see was a man who was clearly struggling to shake off the inertia and, more worryingly, suffering from a calamitous lack of self-confidence.

Considering his past record and the fact that he was captain, Delhi stuck with Pietersen till date, evidently positive of the fact that he would return to form eventually and buoy them up the table.

Unfortunately, the day never came.

Aside from a couple of quickfire 30s in which he essayed some delectable strokes that reminded everyone of his capabilities, Pietersen has found it impossible to carry on. Gone was the world-beating aggression and flair that he brought out to the middle ever since his debut in 2004. Gone was the merciless decimation of bowling attacks. Gone was the form behind the 32 hundreds that he hit in his international career.

Long gone.

His scores so far in the season read: 16, 26*, 14, 0, 6, 35, 33, 13.

With eight defeats in 11 games, Delhi are again languishing at the bottom of the table. Thursday's 62-run loss at the hands of Rajasthan Royals eliminated even a mathematical possibility of qualifying for the playoffs.

Speaking at the post-match presentation, as reported by ESPNcricinfo, Pietersen hoped that Delhi could "cause some upsets" and urged his team to "enjoy the next 10 days." Even that seems a little too optimistic given the way he and Delhi have performed.

On the field, Pietersen should be given credit for never showing his emotions in spite of his team's listless showing. He is often seen with a smile and words of encouragement for his bowlers, even if they are being pasted all over the park.

However, what is lacking from his captaincy is making the right calls with regard to batting positions, bowling changes and the overall management of the squad.

Thursday was the first time this season that Duminy was promoted to fourth in the batting order, when Delhi were chasing a score of 200-plus. Easily their most consistent batsman this season, having scored 332 runs from 10 matches prior to the game, Duminy was always reserved for Nos. 5 and 6, where he didn't get to face as many deliveries as the most in-form batsman of the team should ideally.

Pietersen has also failed to read his bowlers' strengths and weaknesses. On Thursday, Rajasthan were cruising along  at 169 for five in 18 overs when Pietersen tossed the ball to Manoj Tiwary, a batsman by trade. Tiwary ended up being smashed for 17 runs, which helped the Royals reach 201 eventually.

In eight games that Pietersen has captained Delhi, his bowlers have only managed to take 26 wickets; Kings XI Punjab's Sandeep Sharma has himself taken 14 in as many matches. Delhi's highest wicket-taker so far is spinner Shahbaz Nadeem with seven; Hyderabad's Bhuvneshwar Kumar, who holds the Purple Cap for being the leading wicket-taker for the season, has 18 victims to his name.

While the blame for Delhi's hapless show with the ball cannot solely be put on Pietersen, considering Nathan Coulter-Nile was lost early in the season to injury, there's no escaping from the fact that he has erred in shuffling his bowlers around and making the right calls.

On Thursday, Pietersen even admitted, per NDTV, to having erred in his decision to field after winning the toss on a pitch that was very slow and destined to get slower as the match progressed.

Far from being a fairytale season for Pietersen, it's turning out to be more like a nightmare with each passing game. If his nearly decade-long international career has proved anything, it is that Pietersen thrives on his own form. As destructive and talismanic as he can be when on song, the bigger the liability he is when staring down the barrel.

With the play-offs out of reach, Delhi have no choice but to look ahead to the next season. A good start would be to drop their most under-performing players and give a run to some of the bench-warmers or fringe ones.

Three games into the season, Delhi could not wait to get Pietersen in the playing XI. With three games left to go, they have all but run out of reasons to not drop him.

Delhi Daredevils slumped to yet another defeat as Kolkata Knightriders ran out comfortable winners by eight wickets, with more than an over to spare.

After a horror showing with bat, in the field and with the ball—instead of waiting for form to come—it is time for changes to be made.

South African Quinton de Kock is certainly one of the best young talents in the IPL, but the opening partnership only lasted until the third over when de Kock hit a poor shot down the ground and into the hands of Kolkata captain Gautam Gambhir. The 21 year-old walked and on came Pietersen, who needed to rekindle some form.

It was evident from the first ball, however, that KP was uncomfortable at the crease and left arm spinner Shakib Al Hasan of the Knightriders had him under pressure.

The only highlight of Pietersen’s short stint came when he hit Sunil Narine for four. But in the following over he was ran out due to poor running from KP himself, which left Robin Uthappa to take out the wickets.

After a poor powerplay, the Daredevils were on 29/2 and needing a bail out from their remaining batsman to be in with a shout, or they would have to rely on the bowlers.

Dinesh Karthick tried to mount a comeback by making 36 from 22 balls, but was out just as he started building momentum. The job was then left to Jean-Paul Duminy, but the job was already too big, even for him.

The Daredevils’ in-form batsman Duminy made 40 from 28 balls not out to help his side to a mediocre 160.

Poor bowling and some shambolic fielding aided Kolkata in their run chase and added to the woes of the Daredevils and Pietersen.

Delhi now needs to turn its fortunes around. Pietersen played down the idea of changing the batting order post-match, which suggests KP wants to wait for his own form to improve. The strategy—which can work in leagues and tournaments spread out over a longer period of time—might not pay off in a more condensed format like the IPL the games, where losses can pile up fast.

The obvious step to take is to bring JP Duminy up in the order. The risk which comes with that move would be losing your best batsman too early, when he could provide Daredevils with a strong finish to their innings.

But as was proved in the loss to Kolkata, bringing Duminy in too late can mean he runs out of time and is limited to 40 runs.

A change in the batting line-up can pay-off, especially at the top of the order. Knightriders are a prime example for and against change, but their last two games have seen results.

The combination of Gambhir and Uthappa is the fourth different combination used by Kolkata this season. Against Rajasthan Royals and Delhi Daredevils this partnership knocked up more than 100 runs, making it the first partnership in IPL history to make a century in two successive games.

If Daredevils can give Duminy the time by moving him further up the order so he has to scope to make 70 rather than 40, Delhi will have a much better platform and results will come.

One of the Indian Premier League's (IPL) top sides faces one of its bottom ones as the Chennai Super Kings travel to face the Delhi Daredevils.

Venue: Feroz Shah Kotla, Delhi

Date: Monday, May 5

Start time: 3.30 p.m. BST

Live on: Sony Six, Star Sports HD, Star Sports 1 (India), ITV4 (United Kingdom), SuperSport (South Africa), OSN (UAE) SkyTV (New Zealand), Network Ten (Australia), Channel 9 (Bangladesh), Sportsnet and Omni (Canada), Sports Max (West Indies), Geo Super (Pakistan), Starhub (Singapore).

Weather: According to Weather.com, Delhi will be mostly sunny with temperatures reaching a sweltering high of 40 degrees Celsius.

Overview

Delhi were comfortably defeated once again by the Rajasthan Royals by seven wickets in their last game to remain in the lower reaches of the IPL table.

The Daredevils batted first and managed to reach 152-5 from their 20 overs, with Quinton de Kock leading the way with 42 from 33 balls at the top of the order.

However, in reply, things looked very easy for Rajasthan as they reached their target with just three wickets down, with Shahbaz Nadeem, Mohammed Shami and Wayne Parnell taking one apiece for Delhi.

Meanwhile, Chennai won again in their last match as they beat the Kolkata Knight Riders by 34 runs in Ranchi.

The Super Kings batted first and made 148-3 from 17 overs in a game reduced by rain, thanks primarily to 56 from 40 balls by New Zealander Brendon McCullum.

In reply, Kolkata had good contributions from Robin Uthappa with 47 and Yusuf Pathan from 41, but no one else reached double figures.

The Knight Riders innings closed on 114-9, with Ravindra Jadeja taking 4-12 and Mohit Sharma 3-22 as Chennai’s bowlers stifled their opponents.

Team News

Delhi Daredevils (from): Kevin Pietersen (capt.), Mayank Agarwal, Dinesh Karthik, Milind Kumar, Kedar Jadhav, Manoj Tiwary, Saurabh Tiwary, Murali Vijay, Laxmi Ratan Shukla, Jayant Yadav, Siddharth Kaul, Shahbaz Nadeem, Mohammed Shami, Rahul Sharma, HS Sharaf, Rahul Shukla, Jaidev Unadkat, JP Duminy, Quinton de Kock, Ross Taylor, Jimmy Neesham, Nathan Coulter-Nile, Wayne Parnell

Chennai Super Kings (from): Mahendra Singh Dhoni (capt.), Faf du Plessis, Mithun Manhas, Suresh Raina, Dwayne Smith, John Hastings, Vijay Shankar, Baba Aparajith, Dwayne Bravo, Ravindra Jadeja, Brendon McCullum, Samuel Badree, Pawan Negi, Ravi Ashwin, Mohit Sharma, Ashish Nehra, Ishwar Pandey, Ben Hilfenhaus, Matt Henry, Ronit More

Key Players

Wayne Parnell

South African Parnell has shown during this year’s IPL that he is enormously capable of taking wickets and doing so while giving away very few runs.

If he can maintain that form, it may place Delhi in a perfect position to take victory.

Ravi Ashwin

Indian spinner Ashwin has been a little inconsistent so far, but he remains a crucial spinner for Chennai.

With his off-spinners and handy batting, he presents a dual threat to the Daredevils.

The Delhi Daredevils and Rajasthan Royals return to India for the second phase of the Indian Premier League (IPL) with both searching for some consistency.

Venue: Feroz Shah Kotla, Delhi

Date: Saturday, May 3

Start time: 3:30 p.m. BST

Live on: Sony Six, Star Sports HD, Star Sports 1 (India), ITV4 (United Kingdom), SuperSport (South Africa), OSN (UAE) SkyTV (New Zealand), Network Ten (Australia), Channel 9 (Bangladesh), Sportsnet and Omni (Canada), Sports Max (West Indies), Geo Super (Pakistan), Starhub (Singapore).

Weather: According to Weather.com, it promises to be mostly sunny but very hot with temperatures reaching highs of 42 degrees Celsius.

Overview

The Delhi Daredevils are still seeking some consistency but will be hopeful they have gained some momentum after beating the Mumbai Indians by six wickets last time out.

The Indians batted first, but they were restricted to 125-6 from their 20 overs, with Wayne Parnell impressed in taking 1-17 from his four overs.

In reply, Murali Vijay made 40 from 34 balls at the top of the order, then captain Kevin Pietersen led his side home with an unbeaten 26 from 18 deliveries.

Meanwhile, Rajasthan were involved in one of the tightest IPL matches of all time against the Kolkata Knight Riders, with the Royals winning by virtue of boundary count.

Rajasthan batted first and made 152-5 from their 20 overs, led in large part by Ajinkya Rahane with 72 from 59 balls.

In response, Kolkata also managed to reach 152 from their 20 overs for the loss of eight wickets, with James Faulkner leading the Royals bowlers with 3-11.

That meant both teams then entered into a Super Over, from which Kolkata made 11-2 off Faulkner’s bowling.

In reply, the Royals coasted to 11 without loss from their only over, meaning a boundary count was required to determine the winner.

By virtue of their 18 boundaries to Kolkata’s 14, Rajasthan took an incredibly tight victory to move up the table and well into the playoff places.

Team News

Delhi Daredevils (from): Kevin Pietersen (capt.), Mayank Agarwal, Dinesh Karthik, Milind Kumar, Kedar Jadhav, Manoj Tiwary, Saurabh Tiwary, Murali Vijay, Laxmi Ratan Shukla, Jayant Yadav, Siddharth Kaul, Shahbaz Nadeem, Mohammed Shami, Rahul Sharma, HS Sharaf, Rahul Shukla, Jaidev Unadkat, JP Duminy, Quinton de Kock, Ross Taylor, Jimmy Neesham, Nathan Coulter-Nile, Wayne Parnell

Rajasthan Royals (from): Shane Watson (capt.), Brad Hodge, Unmukt Chand, Karun Nair, Ajinkya Rahane, Steven Smith, Rajat Bhatia, Abhishek Nayar, Ben Cutting, Kevon Cooper, Stuart Binny, James Faulkner, Dishant Yagnik, Ankush Bains, Sanju Samson, Iqbal Abdulla, Deepak Hooda, Rahul Tewatia, Ankit Sharma, Pravin Tambe, Tim Southee, Dhawal Kulkarni, Kane Richardson, Vikramjeet Malik, Amit Mishra

Key Players

JP Duminy

South African batsman JP Duminy has begun this year’s IPL in very good form, and he is definitely one to watch in this game.

Having reasserted himself for his country in the World Twenty20, Duminy’s confidence is high, and he will want to maintain his strong start.

Shane Watson

Rajasthan captain Shane Watson has the ability to turn a game with either the bat or the ball in a short space of time.

If he gains some momentum, he can take apart the best bowling attacks or remove the best batsmen, and his twin threat will be something to keep an eye on.

It isn't easy being Kevin Pietersen.

Ever since the South African-origin cricketer first donned the England flannels back in 2004, he has always been in the headlines. His stupendous talent, which made him England's highest run-scorer across all formats in an international career that spanned less than a decade, ensured that a majority of those headlines were positive. Unfortunately for him, only the negative ones stuck.

In February, after scoring 13,797 runs for England across all formats, Pietersen, aged 33, was dropped from the national squad by the England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB) in a unanimous decision. This was in spite of Pietersen being England's leading run-scorer in an otherwise humiliating Ashes whitewash in the Australian summer.

This was also a year after Pietersen was successfully reintegrated into the England squad following a text-message controversy in 2012 that had threatened to end his international career. A second reintegration looks unlikely.

As the seventh edition of the Indian Premier League began earlier this month, Pietersen, bought by the Delhi Daredevils for $1.5 million and later named skipper, would have known that he would still continue to hog the headlines.

An injury to his hand kept him out of Delhi's opening three matches. The team did not quite perform up to expectations, losing two of the games. As soon as Pietersen announced that he hoped to be fit for the fourth game (per ESPNcricinfo), against the Sunrisers Hyderabad, it was evident that all the spotlight and buildup would again be focused on him.

Pietersen would have wanted to erase memories of the last three months by having a good first outing as an out-and-out franchise player. However, three months of relative inertia evidently isn't that easy to shake off, even for a player of his calibre.

On Friday, when he strode out to bat at No. 3, with Delhi needing 86 runs from 52 deliveries, the stage was set for a much-awaited Pietersen masterclass. Unfortunately for him and his well-wishers, it wasn't to be.

Pietersen struggled to judge the line and turn of leggie Karan Sharma in the first four deliveries he faced, before eventually getting off the mark with a single in the bowler's next over.

Hyderabad's other leg-spinner, Amit Mishra, then had some fun with Pietersen as well, as the Englishman struggled to three runs from 10 deliveries. It took a couple more singles off Darren Sammy before Pietersen finally managed to clear the rope, hauling the medium-pacer for a huge six.

In the next over, Pietersen squared up to one of the world's best bowlers, Dale Steyn, and elegantly swiped a fullish delivery past point and wide of the sweeper for four more.

At this point, Delhi needed 51 more from 22 balls, which would have been within an in-form Pietersen's range. However, it would only turn out to be a false start as he was caught in the deep just three balls later, after making 16 from 17 balls—a crime, considering the required rate.

Pietersen's scratchy innings, coupled with what was Delhi's third loss in four matches, is bound to gather more negative press and raise questions over his confidence, form and, more importantly, his captaincy.

Considering Delhi were chasing a steep total and the fact that it was Pietersen's first game in three months, should he have let Jean-Paul Duminy, who had two half-centuries to his name in the tournament already, in to bat before him?

In the end, Duminy only came in at No. 5 with just 19 deliveries remaining, of which he ended up facing just seven, and still managed to score 20. What if Duminy had come in earlier? Would Delhi have scored the four runs that they eventually fell short of?

Possibly.

The Daredevils have already played four of their 14 games this season, winning just the one match against the Kolkata Knight Riders. Pietersen would have ideally hoped for a couple more games to settle in and get into groove, but he would find that his team cannot afford it as things stand.

However, Delhi's next two matches are against the Mumbai Indians and the Rajasthan Royals—two teams who have also struggled in the tournament so far. These two matches are crucial for Pietersen in terms of finding form, or else the Delhi think tank would probably be forced to change their approach.

The bright side for the Daredevils following Friday's game was that they finally seem to have gotten their batting combination right.

Quinton de Kock (48 off 30), who came in for Mayank Agarwal, again proved what a valuable player he is at the top of the order, following a successful last 12 months. Murali Vijay (52 off 40), the other opener, also found form. Dinesh Karthik and Duminy have already been among the runs, which leaves only Pietersen and Manoj Tiwary still left to show up.

Before this game, Pietersen's average in 21 IPL matches was 42.26. A quick return to form isn't beyond his capabilities, given his colourful and prolific career. 

An in-form Pietersen could do wonders for this Delhi side, which has long underperformed and would be eager to better their record. They would, however, hope to avoid a situation where they are forced to drop their own skipper.