IPL 12: Delhi suffer sunstroke!

New Delhi: Sunrisers Hyderabad defeated Delhi Capitals by five wickets in a one-sided match at the Feroze Shah Kotla Stadium here on Thursday night.

After restricting the Capitals to a paltry 129 for 8, Sunrisers replied with 131 for 5 in 18.3 overs thanks to a fine knock by opener Jonny Bairstow who hit 48 and put on 64 for the first wicket with David Warner in 6.5 overs.

Earlier, the Sunrisers bowlers exploited the conditions well, making life difficult for the hosts, who simply failed to get going right from the start on a slow wicket.

Skipper Shreyas Iyer tried to anchor the innings with a steady 41-ball 43 but didn’t get support from the other end. It would have been more embarrassing for Delhi, if not for the cameos from Chris Morris (17 off 15) and Axar Patel (23 not out off 13).

The pace-spin combination of Bhuvneshwar Kumar and Mohammad Nabi gave Sunrisers a good start, restricting Delhi to 19 for one in first four overs after the visitors won the toss and elected to field.

After conceding a first ball boundary, Bhuvneshwar came back to clean up Prithvi Shaw in the third over.

Skipper Iyer then deposited one at the stands after Siddarth Kaul was introduced into the attack, while Shikha Dhawan hit a four with a sweep shot off Nabi.

But another sweep shot proved costly as Nabi had Dhawan caught at short fine leg by Sandeep Sharma as Delhi slumped to 36 for 2 after the end of the powerplay.

A lot was expected from Rishabh Pant but he too departed just after time-out in the 10th over. Trying a inside out shot, he was holed out at long off by Deepak Hooda as Nabi completed his spell with impressive figures of 4-0-21-2. Sandeep Sharma then bamboozled Rahul Tewatia with a knuckle ball as Delhi slipped to 61 for four in 11 overs. In the 14th over, Manish Pandey took a superb catch at point to dismiss Colin Ingram off Kaul.