 Virender Sehwag is in the form of his life and that was proved yesterday when
he smashed a century off almost next to nothing number of balls to win the game
for the Delhi Daredevils against the Deccan Chargers. It was an
innings of so much brute force that the Chargers were left licking their wounds.
Sehwag smashed his way to the century as his side chased down a total of 176
for a win. Such was his batting that he scored 113 off 56 balls and when he
finally got out, the side had scored 153 - this means that he had scored 113
out of the 153 that the side had made and that pushed the side to the win. The
Chargers did drop Virender Sehwag twice in course of his innings and
that meant that there was no looking back for the side or the batsman.
Sehwag's swashbuckling batting saw him get to 10 off 14 deliveries to begin
with. However, once he got going, there wasn't any looking back as Ishan Malhotra
and Amit Mishra were taken to the cleaners by the Delhi captain. Malhotra went
for 23 in the only over he bowled whereas Mishra conceded 53 runs off the four
overs that he sent down.
To give an idea of how belligerent his knock was, the second-best innings in
the Daredevils side came from the bat of James Hopes, who made 17!
Earlier, the Chargers had got to 175 thanks to the batting of JP Duminy, who
stroked his way to a half century while captain Kumar Sangakkara had
a sweet knock of 44 that stood the side in a good stead. Unfortunately for them,
Sehwag's century overcame both the innings.
The win puts the Delhi Daredevils on eight points from ten games and they have
four more games to go. On the other hand, the Chargers are struggling with six
points from the ten games and are out of the tournament, unless they can be
saved by some miracle. Delhi play champion side Mumbai Indians in the next game.
On the other hand, the Chargers have a break before they take on the Pune Warriors
in what could be a battle for the bottom spot.
Delhi will look to win all the games remaining if they need to be in contention
to get to the next stage.
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