Brendon McCullum

Delhi suffered another set back to their hopes of earning a semifinal spot as the side lost to Kochi on its home ground on Monday. Kochi won the game quite comfortably by seven wickets and with five overs to spare.

The wicket offered good assistance for pace bowling and also supported stroke-making. Delhi could only blame themselves for an average all-round performance which was outclassed by a spirited display by the Kochi Tuskers.

Brendon McCullum dominated the run chase by thrashing the Delhi bowlers all round the park. He scored 37 of just 19 balls when his team was chasing a moderate score of 141. When he was dismissed the team needed only 80 runs of 15 overs, less than a run a ball. His blitzkrieg included five fours and two sixes.

Klinger did well to rotate the strike and to give McCullum the maximum no. of balls to face. The fall of McCullum came in the sixth over when he miscued a pull staright to mid-on who made no mistake. Parthiv Patel was sent in at No.3 this time. He ensured that the Kochi Tuskers were up to the required rate without doing anything silly. His unbeaten 37 included five boundaries. Brad Hodge was in a hurry to finish things off as he scored 24 from just 13 balls which included 3 fours and a six.

For Delhi nothing went well right from the start as the openers Virender Sehwag and David Warner were dismissed early after getting mini-starts for 15 and 13 respectively. Their middle-order let them down yet again after the openers were dismissed for cheap scores.

Venugopal Rao and Yogesh Nagar (18) raised a 54-run partnership to hold the middle-order together but consumed more than 50 balls inorder to do so. Venugopal Rao (40 off 36 balls) was the top scorer for the Delhi Daredevils while Travis Birt made a brisk 27 towards the end. Prasanth Parameswaran (2 for 29), playing his first game, and R Vinay Kumar (2 for 25) picked up two wickets each.

The hosts just about managed to score a modest 140 for six. When looking at their batting order one cannot avoid getting the feeling that the Delhi batting depends too heavily on Sehwag and Warner and there is little gravity in the middle-order except Venugopal Rao.

Tags: DD, Delhi Daredevils, Indian Premier League, IPL, IPL 2011, IPL 4, Kochi Tuskers Kerala, KTK