IPL 2018: New captain Shreyas Iyer brings good tidings as Delhi break losing streak in style

IANS

New captain Shreyas Iyer brought good tidings to the Delhi camp as they beat Kolkata by 55 runs at the Ferozshah Kotla Stadium to register their second win in seven IPL 2018 games on Friday.

Iyer played a blinder of an innings (93 not out off 40 balls) to help Delhi post the highest total (219/4) of the season, after which the hosts' bowlers combined beautifully to restrict Dinesh Karthik's men to 164/9 in 20 overs.

Chasing such a big total after deciding to bowl, KKR lost early wickets and were never really in the hunt thereafter. Andre Russell got the visitors' hopes up briefly with a 30-ball 44 as he and Shubman Gill (37 off 29 balls) added 64 for the sixth wicket but that was as good as it got for KKR.

For Delhi, Trent Boult (new Purple Cap owner), Amit Mishra, Glenn Maxwell and Avesh Khan took two wickets each. This was KKR's fourth defeat in seven matches.

No.3 Iyer, who was made captain of the side earlier this week after Gautam Gambhir decided to leave the DD captaincy, joined Prithvi Shaw with 59 runs on the board in seven overs.

Delhi scored a whopping 76 runs in the last four overs and 49 of those came off the bat of Iyer, who in all hit three fours and 10 sixes.

Shivam Mavi bore the brunt of the Iyer assault as he conceded 29 runs in the last over of the innings, highest by any bowler this season.

This was Iyer's third successive fifty this season. The 23-year-old also became the fourth player to score a fifty on captaincy debut, joining the likes of Aaron Finch, Murali Vijay and Adam Gilchrist.

Earlier in the day, playing only his second IPL game, Shaw scored his maiden fifty and became the joint-youngest player to do so in the history of the league. Shaw reached his fifty in 37 balls against KKR and proved why many consider him 'one for the future'. 

Shaw eventually fell for a 44-ball 62. He hit seven fours and two sixes during his stay at the crease. Here is the list of the top-6 youngest players to score an IPL fifty. 

18 years 169 days Prithvi Shaw 
18 years 169 days S Samson (2013)
18 years 212 days R Pant (2016)
18 years 299 days I Kishan (2017)
19 years 001 days S Goswami (2008)
19 years 253 days M Pandey (2009)

Delhi started the match well as their openers added 59 runs to record the team's highest opening stand this season. Colin Munro and Shaw batted with great conviction and flair to get the team off to a flier. 

12 (against KXIP), 0 (against RR), 50 (against MI), 4 (against KKR), 7 (against RCB) and 25 (against KXIP) were Delhi's opening returns in their previous six matches. The partnership ended off the last ball of the seventh over when Kiwi Munro, only player in world cricket to score three T20I tons, was cleaned up by fast bowler Mavi against the run of play. 

Munro departed for 33 and hit four fours and two sixes during his 18-ball stay.