Devils wallop Wayamba

New Delhi
Oct. 11: There’s no rust on this baby. Pushing 40, Glenn Mcgrath hadn’t played a single game for close to one-and-a-half years, and not trained for more than five months before Sunday. Yet with the way he sent down ball after ball in the same spot not giving the batsmen any width to work him, one could have confused him with the McGrath of yore.
He castled two in his four overs, giving away just 20 runs as an under-pressure Delhi Daredevils hit back to rack up an 50-run win over Wayamba Elevens in their must-win Champions League Group D match at the Kotla here.
The Daredevils’ batting led by fierce fifties from Virender Sehwag (66) and Dinesh Karthik (61) had set up a huge 171-run target for Wayamba to chase, and McGrath along with Nannes (4/24) made it a no contest, restricting the Sri Lankan side to 120/8.
Only Mahela Jayawardene shone with a fine 53; the rest couldn’t galvanise themselves in the face of a challenging total and some very tight bowling.
Pitched just outside off, McGrath’s first ball off his second over and the team’s seventh, moved back in to knock the top of skipper Jehan Mubarak’s (0) off stump. His final ball off the same over darted back in even more sharply, crashing into Kaushal Lokuarachchi’s (4) leg stump. Ironically, the retired Aussie great, wasn’t even part of the original Daredevils squad for the Champions League and was drafted in as last-minute replacement was the injured Kiwi spinner Daniel Vettori.
He was also ignored in the Daredevils’ Indian Premier League semifinal run in South Africa, with the team management voicing concern over his fitness. This despite McGrath saying he had to wrestle with the idea of leaving his two kids behind with their grandparents to keep up his IPL commitment following the loss of his wife Jane to cancer. Had Pradeep Sangwan not underwhelmed in the Daredevils’ loss to Victoria Bushrangers on Friday, he, in all probability, would have gone back home without a game under his belt.
Earlier, the Daredevils took a cue from the New South Wales’ batting earlier in the day and took time charging up. A maiden at the start was followed up with two quiet overs, with the Wayamba left-armer Chanaka Welegedara varying his pace to good effect.
The decision to promote Tillakaratne Dilshan (10), to opening slot at the expense of Gautam Gambhir (3) didn’t work with both falling cheaply. At the other end, however, Sehwag had already begun his onslaught and was joined by a Karthik in menacing mood.
Farveez Mahroof came under heavy fire from both — Sehwag flicking him twice to the mid-wicket fence and Karthik responding with two cheeky fours behind the wicket. At the the 11th-over mark, Delhi were cruising along at 78/2, a score of 140, predicted as competitive by Gambhir, easily within reach. The pitch offered some help to the spinners, but Sehwag never let them settle down, slogging Kaushal Lokuarachchi’s first ball over deep midwicket en route to his fifty that took just 32 balls .
He was run out attempting a non-existent single with fours overs left to go, but ironically that pushed the run rate even further. Karthik whipped Ajanatha Mendis for three consecutive sixes in the penultimate over, before Owais Shah launched into a big one over extra cover in the final one to set up a stiff target for the Lankan side.
Brief Scores
Delhi Daredevils 170 for 5 (Virender Sehwag 66, Dinesh Karthik 61) bt Wayamba Eleven 120 for 7 (Mahela Jayawardene 53; Dirk Nannes 4/24, Glenn McGrath 2/20).
Source::DC