Delhi sign off with a win

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New Delhi: The turnout belied the insignificance of this match, with the crowds filling up the stands to primarily watch the cricketers more than the cricket. They did manage to catch rare glimpses of Virender Sehwag, Glenn McGrath and Ashish Nehra, running in with towels and bottles in hand, forming a powerful bench even as Cape Cobras opted to field on the notorious Ferozeshah Kotla pitch. They duly paid the price with a 30-run defeat that stripped them of their ‘invincible’ tag in the tournament.

It was more an opportunity to experiment for both sides. The visitors will not be complaining about the result, though, happily heading back to Hyderabad to tackle Trinidad & Tobago — the only unbeaten team so far — in the second semi-final, away from the low and variable bounce problems of the Ferozeshah Kotla, where two Australian teams — NSW Blues and Victoria Bushrangers — face off.

Dirk Nannes managed to extract the bounce that has eluded other pacers on this strip, cracking the helmet of Henry Davids and rattling skipper Andrew Puttick, Ryan Canning and Claude Henderson’s stumps with serious pace. Nannes finished with impressive figures of 4-0-19-3 and rushed straight to the airport for the early morning flight back home, as the Daredevils finished their Champions League campaign with a sense of satisfaction more than anything else.

Batting disaster

It was Nannes’s unusual new-ball partner, Tillakaratne Dilshan, who began with a bang, dismissing Herschelle Gibbs caught leg-before for nought off only the second delivery of the innings. His off-breaks claimed Justin Ontong to snuff out Cobras’s hopes of keeping their slate clean.

Amit Mishra then sent back Rory Kleinveldt and JP Duminy in a space of three balls as the South African side’s middle order failed to stand up to both raw pace and genuine spin, collapsing for 84 all out in 18.3 overs — the lowest total in the tournament. The previous lowest was, ironically, by Delhi Daredevils on the same ground.

The Cobras lost the plot with the bat in the same fashion as Delhi had earlier in the evening, losing the top order which left a clueless middle order exposed. Dilshan quit the scene early after a skidder from Rory Kleinveldt, and opening partner Gautam Gambhir joined him in the dugout two deliveries later to a failed cut shot that took an inside edge onto his stumps.

Sluggish pace