Mishra, De Kock hand Delhi Daredevils their first win
AMIT MISHRA'S FOUR-FOR and Quinton de Kock's unbeaten 59 gave the Delhi Daredevils their first win of the season against the Kings XI Punjab at the Feroz Shah Kotla ground.
Daredevils skipper Zaheer Khan won the toss and led from the front by bowling three miserly overs up-front, which included a maiden to not give any momentum to the Punjab batsmen.
The introduction of Mishra into the bowling attack was the key as he picked up Shaun Marsh with his very first ball. Marsh, looking to sashay down the track missed a flighted delivery to give Daredevils their second breakthrough in the seventh over.
He brought about further damage by dismissing David Miller in the next over as a very unfortunate Miller walked back to the pavillion. This brought Glenn Maxwell to the wicket and after misreading two of Mishra's deliveries went for a big one of the next to be caught at long-off.
Manan Vohra, who was the only Daredevils batsman looking good out in the middle failed to read a wrong-un from Mishra to lose his leg stump. The visitors' back had been broken by now as the scorecard read 59/5. Wriddhiman Saha made it worse as he got run-out, trying to casually slide his bat in off the point fielder.
The Punjab innings soon ran out of overs as they ended with 111/9 on the board, Mishra finishing with figures reading 3-0-11-4
Chasing the smallish target, Shreyas Iyer was unlucky to get caught down the legside to give Punjab a decent start. In walked Sanju Samson and he along with De Kock put on 91 runs for the second wicket in reasonably good time to put Punjab out of the contest.
De Kock's innings consisted of nine boundaries and a colossal six over deep fine-leg off Mitchell Johnson to end any hopes of a Punjab-comeback. Samson played his part, too as he made 33* to take the home side over the line with eight wickets in hand in the 14th over.
The win gave Delhi their first points in the tournament as they look to improve on their poor IPL-record.
For his effort, Mishra won the Man of the Match as Delhi travel to Bangalore on Sunday for their match against the Royal Challengers Bangalore.
