Rahane Scores 63 Off 48 Balls as RPS Beat Delhi Daredevils
Rahane’s blistering 63 off 48 balls helped the Rising Pune Supergiants beat Delhi Daredevils by seven wickets.
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Ajinkya Rahane’s blistering 63 off 48 balls helped the Rising Pune Supergiants beat Delhi Daredevils by seven wickets at New Delhi on Thursday.
While chasing Delhi’s modest total of 162/7, Pune got off to spectacular start with an opening stand of 59 runs between Usman Khawaja (30) and Ajinkya Rahane.
Rahane strung two more important partnerships with S Tiwary and MS Dhoni of 45 and 42 runs respectively.
Dhoni, who smashed 27 runs from 20 balls was dismissed after Sam Billings took a fantastic catch off Imran Tahir’s bowling in the 19th over.
Thisara Perera came in and played the finisher’s role perfectly with a five-ball 14-run innings.
Rahane smashed a boundary off M Shami to wrap up the match in the first ball of the final over.
Earlier, after being invited to bat, the host batsmen found starts but could not turn those into big scores.
Skipper JP Duminy, who led the side in place of Zaheer Khan, was the top-scorer for the side with his 34-run knock, which came off 32 balls with just one shot to the fence.
Sanju Samson (20), Karun Nair (32) and Sam Billings (24) were all guilty of throwing away their wickets after getting starts.
The Supergiants stifled the Daredevils innings with excellent bowling from Rajat Bhatia (2/22) and R Ashwin (0/34) in the middle overs and had it not been for some powerful hits by Carlos Barthwaite (20 off 8), the Daredevils would have struggled to find momentum.
Pawan Negi contributed with an unbeaten 19 off 12, getting 13 runs of last over bowled by paceman Ashoke Dinda (1/34).
Supergiants remained at number six in the points table but got a crucial win under their belt, having struggled to find their feet in their debut season after losing some key players due to injuries.
It was only the third win for the Pune outfit after losing six matches.