The Delhi fan knows his team can finally break the semis jinx.

By Chayan Rastogi

The only two teams that have performed consistently over the last two seasons of IPL have been Delhi and Chennai, reaching the IPL semis both years but unfortunately none winning the trophy.

The both teams were in Delhi for their encounter and faking a terrible headache with an award-winning acting performance, I took an early off from my office to watch this Friday evening clash at Firoz Shah Kotla ground.

The stadium was occupied with complete capacity and the crowd was roaring their lungs out in support for Delhi team! The glamour-dolls dancing on DJ tunes for both the teams brought a lot of cheer among the public and made their wait worth every penny!

Both Delhi and Chennai were without their regular captains in this match as Gambhir and Dhoni were nursing injuries. Dinesh Karthik, the stand-in captain for Daredevils won the toss and trusting their batting-power, chose to bat first.

Delhi opened their batting with new combination of Virender Sehwag and Aussie batting sensation David Warner. As expected, Sehwag took attack to the opposition very early in the innings and clubbed two powerful boundaries in the first over. Chennai stand-in skipper Suresh Raina made a pro-active move by introducing spinner Ashwin into the attack but he was also taken for runs as Warner and Sehwag belted him for boundaries.

The brisk start from Delhi came to halt when Balaji got Warner out, caught by Hayden in the 4th over. Dilshan did not looked in the best of touch as he unsuccessful attempted few ‘Dil scoops’ but rotated strike to Sehwag who was in brutal mood. Viru, who looks in brilliant form this season, continued to attack all bowlers and hit few gigantic blows out of the ground.

The crowd was pumped and with Delhi’s 100 coming in 11th over for loss of just 1 wicket, a huge score was up on the cards. At a time when Chennai bowlers were taking a beating, it was their outstanding fielding which brought them back into the game. Raina caught a Dilshan ‘bullet’ at mid-wicket to end his resistance while Justin Kemp plucked a one-hand diving blinder to send Sehwag back, only after he made a quick fire 38-ball 74. Delhi’s lower order batsman contributed with quick runs but Raina took two more marvellous catches to restrict Daredevils to competitive 185.

Chennai started their innings with Matthew Hayden timing his shots beautifully but a superb diving direct-hit from AB De Villiers cut short Parthiv Patel’s stay on the crease. Just at the moment when Delhi looked to attack Super Kings, Hayden unleashed a wide array of shots with his trademark counter-attack.

After hitting four boundaries, he unveiled his new innovative ‘Mongoose bat’ and made a mockery of Delhi’s toothless bowling. With hardly any match-practise under his belt, Hayden plundered the attack and hit 7 massive sixes. With an innings of 43-ball 93, he single-handedly silenced Delhi crowd and gave lots of reason for gorgeous Chennai cheerleaders to show their dancing talent.

Once Hayden got out, Suresh Raina comfortably saw Chennai home with sensible hitting, making 49 runs of 34 balls.

This was Delhi’s second consecutive home loss after two straight wins and they now desperately need some bowling revival to contain the opposition.

They are dearly missing services of Ashish Nehra, a bowler whose presence never seemed a boon but absence is proving fatal!

Delhi will now move to Cuttack for their next game and hopefully with Gambhir back, will return to their winning ways.

And with fans like me who put their office at stake, giving obnoxious reasons to take a day-off, they better return to winning ways!