David Warner hammered an unbeaten 92 and put on a 100-plus stand with Rovman Powell as Delhi Capitals eased to a 21-run win over Sunrisers Hyderabad in the Indian Premier League on Thursday.
The Australia opener — who was dumped as Sunrisers captain last year and not retained — hit 12 fours and three sixes in his 58-ball innings.
Among his fours was a freak switch-hit to an attempted Bhuvneshwar Kumar yorker that he somehow worked away for four.
The West Indies’ Powell finishing 67 not out off 35 balls with three fours and six massive sixes.
Hyderabad could only manage 186-8 in reply to Delhi’s 207-3. The Capitals leapfrog their opponents into fifth in the IPL table, one win from moving into the playoff spots.
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Seamer Bhuvneshwar Kumar bowled a wicket-maiden and dismissed Warner’s opening partner Mandeep Singh to give Sunrisers a perfect start after skipper Kane Williamson won the toss and chose to field first.
All-rounder Mitchell Marsh fell for 10 to fellow Australian Sean Abbott before Delhi’s middle-order took control.
Captain Rishabh Pant hit three sixes and a four in one Shreyas Gopal over before falling to the spinner for a brief but promising 16-ball 26.
Delhi did not lose any more wickets as Warner and Powell put together a 122-run partnership and destroyed Hyderabad’s pace battery.
Pant said Warner’s innings “is one of the best I’ve seen for Delhi Capitals for a long period of time.”
Young Indian pacers Umran Malik, who clocked a rapid 157 km/h, and Kartik Tyagi gave away 89 runs in their eight wicketless overs and Abbott finished with 1-47 in his four overs.
Hyderabad lost both openers very early in the chase.
Williamson only managed a scratchy 11-ball 4 and Abhishek Sharma was dismissed cheaply by the left-arm pace of Khaleel Ahmed.
The Hyderabad middle-order struggled to keep up with the high required run-rate. Rahul Tripathi holed out off Marsh and South African Aiden Markram skied a catch off Ahmed after a 25-ball 42.
Ahmed also took Abbott’s scalp to finish his four overs with 3-30.
West Indies’ new white-ball captain Nicholas Pooran kept Sunrisers’ slim hopes alive with a 34-ball 62 and struck two fours and six sixes before mishitting a Shardul Thakur full toss to Powell at long-on.
“For us, it’s just going back to the drawing board and keeping things really simple,” Williamson said after his team’s third successive defeat.
“An outstanding knock from David Warner and Powell at the end, two great contributions that went a long way toward them winning the game.”
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