Henriques stars in Hyderabad win

Moises Henriques’ best Indian Premier League performance to date helped Hyderabad keep their 2015 IPL playoffs hopes alive as half-centuries for Quinton de Kock and Kedar Jadhav fell in vain for the Daredevils.

Bhuvneshwar Kumar and Ishant Sharma held their nerve during the last three overs of the Delhi chase to stop them just six runs short of the Hyderabad total and earn them their sixth win of the season.

This was after Hyderabad overcome the early losses of David Warner and Shikhar Dhawan thanks to Henriques’ maiden IPL fifty that helped them post a challenging 4-163 on a tough pitch.

Henriques’ score was his second best in a Twenty20, while Nathan Coulter-Nile grabbed a couple of wickets for Delhi but the Daredevils’ backup bowling caved in the face of Hyderabad’s calculated assault in the final five overs.

With Delhi all but out of contention for a playoffs berth, they went in with three changes to their line-up. Imran Tahir, Manoj Tiwary and Angelo Mathews were made to sit out and de Kock, Jayant Yadav and Coulter-Nile were brought in.

Hyderabad strengthened their bowling with selection Parvez Rasool in place of the out-of-sorts Hanuma Vihari.

It was a bold decision by captain Warner to bat first given it was the first game being played at the ground but his team responded well to the challenge.

The Hyderabad batsmen read the pitch early enough to understand the need for settling in before playing big shots on it.

Warner (13) and Shikhar Dhawan (17) seemed to have gotten off to a decent start, but both fell within a couple of balls of each other to reduce Hyderabad to 2-31 in the fifth over.

The early loss of their openers has been Hyderabad’s Achilles Heel this season which is why the way they batted after that made for even more impressive viewing.

Eoin Morgan was coming off a solid, man-of-the-match performance last game and he joined Henriques in their primary role of rebuilding the Hyderabad innings on that slowish track.

However, with the rate still hovering around the six-run-an-over mark, Morgan looked to push the scoring but failed to clear long-off off Yadav and it looked like Hyderabad could be pegged down to a below-par total when they fell to 3-64 in the 11th.

At the other end, Henriques had begun rather slowly, getting to just 10 from 16, before a six hoicked over mid-wicket off Mishra brought him into the game and he started to take advantage of the lesser bowlers.

It also helped Henriques get to his half-century, his first of the season and fifth of his Twenty20 career, before he banished Morkel for back to back sixes in the penultimate over of the innings.

Another six, his fifth of the innings, followed in Zaheer’s last over and propelled Hyderabad to 64 runs from the final five overs, taking them to what would turn out to be a match-winning knock.

Delhi lost Shreyas Iyer for an early duck but it had no effect on Quinton de Kock’s aggressive stroke-play.

Image Id: ~/media/C1395C40098549398A453FF4C7E316D9David Warner and Parveez Rasool celebrate a wicket // BCCI

He had made his first runs of his season with a favourite square-cut to the fence and followed it up with two more fours off Ishant Sharma next over.

Even as captain JP Duminy, despite his excellent form this season, struggled to get his timing right on the two-paced track, Praveen Kumar was welcomed by de Kock with a couple of pulls and a cover-drive for fours.

An over later, Ishant had been spanked for 15 more runs, as Delhi reached the end of their Powerplay at 1-49.

De Kock went on to complete his maiden IPL half-century off just 29 balls and at 1-60 after eight, it looked like the Daredevils had the chase under control.

However the wicket of de Kock changed the complexion of the game quickly.

A struggling Yuvraj Singh wanted to loft Rasool over long-on but only managed to mistime it to the fielder before Duminy’s attempted cut saw him miss and get bowled.

With only Saurabh Tiwary and Kedar Jadhav among the recognised batsmen remaining, the game looked to have tilted in favour of Hyderabad, but the duo fought back with a display not too different from the first innings of the game.

With Delhi needing 25 from 17 balls and the fifth wicket stand already worth 73, the game looked to be wrapped up but only nine came from the next 11 balls to leave Ishant with 16 to defend from the last over.

Despite a first-ball four off Tiwary’s blade, they were unable to get themselves any other boundaries to leave Hyderabad narrow winners.