Brief scores: Delhi Daredevils 168/7 (Sanju Samson 39, Rishabh Pant 38; Nathan Coulter-Nile 3/22, Sunil Narine 1/20) beat Kolkata Knight Riders 169/6 (Manish Pandey 69*, Yusuf Pathan 59; Zaheer Khan 2/28, Pat Cummins 2/39) by 4 wickets.

Delhi started off with a flourish, with Samson smashing 6 boundaries from the 1st 12 deliveries he faced. Sam Billings got in on the act in the third over and Delhi Daredevils were soon cruising at 36/0 after 3 overs. With Delhi well placed at 53/0 at the end of the powerplay, Nathan Coulter-Nile sent Billings on his way on the first ball after the powerplay and Umesh Yadav removed the dangerous looking Sanju Samson two overs later which meant that Kolkata were well and truly back in the game. 

Karun Nair & Shreyas Iyer put on 42 runs for the 5th wicket, but both fell in consecutive overs to bring control back to the Kolkata side, somewhat against the run of play.  The 17th over saw young teenage sensation, Rishabh Pant hit senior Indian bowler, Umesh Yadav for 26 runs, before Aussie Coulter-Nile holed him out to Gambhir to leave the Delhi side at 154/6 with an over and a half to go. What followed was a comedy of errors, in which, Coulter-Nile failed to get the opposition batsmen out in not 1, 2, but 3 attempts in the same over. First, Umesh Yadav and Captain Gambhir were guilty of dropping simple catches, and then the gods were at fault, as the ball clipped the stump but failed to dislodge the bails. After some more fireworks in the last over, the innings finally closed at 168/7 for the Delhi side, with only 22 runs scored in the last 3 overs.

Kolkata top order collapse under Cummins & Khan pressure

Kolkata leave it late to win at Feroz Shah Kolta

After the interval, however, Delhi fought back conceding just 11 runs in two overs. But the KKR duo had gotten accustomed to the pace of the pitch and both upped the ante as soon as the required run rate went above 9 runs an over. After scoring 11 runs off the 13th over, the KKR batsmen took 15 runs off Zaheer Khan, who had conceded just 13 runs in his three previous overs, to bring KKR within touching distance of a victory. Even though Pathan was caught by Morris off his own bowling, the hard work had been done with Kolkata needing just 34 off 30 balls. Pandey and Suryakumar Yadav dealt in singles taking the score to 152 before the latter had a rush of blood to the head and was caught at mid off while attempting a big shot. Sanju Samson acrobatically saved a six to keep Delhi alive in the game and when Amit Mishra dismissed Chris Woakes, it was anybody’s game with KKR needing 9 runs off 4 balls. But Pandey hit eight runs off two balls to secure the win for the away side.