Career-best Coulter-Nile destroys Punjab

Kings XI Punjab dropped Mitchell Johnson from their starting XI while Delhi Daredevil's Nathan Coulter-Nile bagged a new career-best Twenty20 figures to lead his side to a thumping nine-wicket win in the IPL.

Chasing a meagre 119 for a win, Delhi needed 13.5 overs to record their fourth win of the competition and climb into the top four of the Indian Premier League points table.

Earlier, a half-century seventh-wicket stand between David Miller and Axar Patel helped the Kings XI total to some respectability after Zaheer Khan and Coulter-Nile had wrecked the Punjab top-order.

Zaheer ended with figures of 2-17 while Coulter-Nile's 4-20 was enough to earn him a deserved man-of-the-match award.

Shaun Marsh and George Bailey were deemed to fit to play with both under an injury cloud after being struck while batting in the nets a day earlier but failed to make an impression with the bat.

Delhi brought in Zaheer for the first time which meant Domnic Joseph was benched while Saurabh Tiwary replaced Shahbaz Nadeem to strengthen their batting.

Punjab were seemingly left with no option but to drop Johnson because of his poor form this tournament, replaced by Sri Lanka bowler Thisara Perera. Murali Vijay and Rishi Dhawan were also sidelined and Virender Sehwag and Shardul Thakur took their place in the XI.

Kings XI lost a wicket in each of their first four overs, and despite some resilience from Bailey, a quick couple of dismissals had them reeling at 6-46 at the halfway stage. It was admittedly a double-paced pitch to bat against the new ball but not as bad as the Punjab scoreline suggested.

Returning to competitive cricket for the first time in almost 12 months, Zaheer had to wait for just two balls to strike. Sehwag, also on a comeback, squeezed a length ball straight to the short cover fielder.

Next over, Marsh was given out lbw off Duminy for five. While it looked like it could have missed the leg-stump, Marsh had also wandered outside the crease for a moment, during which the stumps were dislodged by the slip fielder, so would have been runout had he not been given out lbw.

Zaheer struck again next over when Manan Vohra was deceived by a slower ball that bounced a tad more than he expected and when Coulter-Nile got Wriddhiman Saha to nick him to the keeper, Punjab had lost four for 10. It had been their second-worst start ever in IPL cricket.

Bailey looked like he was getting them out of trouble but Amit Mishra ended his stay after just 16 balls to trap him in front before Perera’s return to the side was ended by Coulter-Nile before the halfway stage was up.

At 6-46 all looked lost for Punjab but Miller and Patel rebuilt the innings through till the time they managed to hit a few to the fence. They added 57, with Miller going on to score 42 from 41, but Coulter-Nile got the better of both of them.

Imran Tahir took some stick from his South Africa teammate and ended with figures of 0-36 from three overs with Miller and Patel launching into him and Anureet Singh finishing the innings off with a six.

Not that it mattered anyway and the Delhi openers showed the pitch contained no gremlins.

Iyer, who had come into the game with a couple of fifties under his belt, began with two sixes and a four in the second over from Thakur and Agarwal joined in the fun with another maximum in the fifth over of the chase.

Punjab needed early wickets to have a chance to compete but in the absence of Johnson, it was all down to Sandeep Sharma to provide them with the breakthrough. He gave away just 10 in his first, three-over spell but the Delhi openers recognised him as Punjab’s biggest threat and gave him enough respect.

Once he was off the attack, and with the required-rate falling to just over five an over, the going got easier.

The introduction of spin from Patel looked to stall the scoring for a bit but Iyer broke free with a slog-swept six in his second over.

From then on, it was only a matter of when Delhi got to their target and whether the opening batsmen would achieve their individual landmarks.

Iyer brought up his half-century from 38 balls before flicking one straight to the deep mid-wicket fielder while Agarwal used up 39 deliveries to get to his fifty in the same over and completed the last rites of the game in the next.