IPL 2018 Report Card: Delhi Daredevils' Rishabh Pant, Shreyas Iyer stand out; Jos Buttler plays a blinder for Rajasthan Royals

The Delhi Daredevils won their second match of the season under their new skipper Shreyas Iyer on Wednesday, beating the Rajasthan Royals by four runs via the Duckworth-Lewis-Stern (DLS) method in a rain-interrupted fare. The match at the Daredevils’ home ground of the Ferozshah Kotla was first reduced to 18-overs-a-side due to rain before the match started. Winning the toss, Rajasthan opted to field first. But Delhi proved their decision wrong as the trio of Prithvi Shaw, Iyer and Rishabh Pant made merry and launched Delhi to a total of 196/6 before rain interrupted again with five deliveries to go in their innings. [caption id=“attachment_4454917” align=“alignleft” width=“380”] Delhi Daredevils’ Rishabh Pant plays a shot against Rajasthan Royals in an IPL 2018 match at the Ferozshah Kotla. AFP[/caption] As a result, the match was again reduced, this time to 12-overs-a-side with Rajasthan requiring 151 runs to win. Jos Buttler tried his best with a 26-ball knock of 67 runs. D’Arcy Short also tried with a contribution of 44 runs. Krishnappa Gowtham threatened to take the game away from Delhi with a six-ball cameo of 18 runs. But their efforts didn’t prove to be enough as they ultimately fell short of the target by a narrow margin. Let us take a look at how all the 22 players in this match fared and try to rate their performances on a scale of 10: 10/10 Rishabh Pant Pant registered his second consecutive fifty in this match and also the third of the Indian Premier League (IPL) season so far. It was a treat to watch him bat as he blasted his way to a 29-ball 69, smashing all the bowlers all around the park before being tricked by Jaydev Unadkat’s slower delivery towards the fag end of the innings. Jos Buttler Buttler gave the Daredevils the scare of their lives as he started hitting big from the word go. He had his task cut out with Rajasthan requiring 151 runs in 12 overs. He smashed the Daredevils bowlers to all corners before falling for 67 off 26 balls in the seventh over. 9/10 Shreyas Iyer The Daredevils skipper continued his impressive run in the league with yet another fifty. He timed his innings to perfection walking out to bat at No 3 but got dismissed just after scoring his fifty. Unadkat was the man again who dismissed him for a 35-ball knock of 50. Trent Boult The Kiwi pacer was the best of the Delhi bowlers in this match. He bowled the right line and lengths and didn’t allow the Rajasthan batsmen to score at the required rate. He conceded just 26 runs in his three overs and picked up the prized wickets of Ben Stokes and Sanju Samson. Amit Mishra Mishra bowled a fabulous couple of overs during that carnage from Buttler, conceding just 12 runs. Not only that, he also tricked the English batsmen and stumped him with a well-disguised top-spinner. 8/10 Prithvi Shaw The 18-year old put up a scintillating show of explosive shots as he played a majestic knock of 47 runs off just 25 deliveries. He was going all guns blazing but failed to read a well-flighted delivery from Shreyas Gopal and eventually perished. D’Arcy Short Short started off quite slowly and was just nudging around for singles as long as Buttler was batting. However, he picked up the pace once Buttler departed, smashing everything to the boundary. He was ultimately dismissed for a well made innings of 44 runs off 25 deliveries. 7/10 Vijay Shankar He followed his fifty in the previous game with a cameo of 17 runs off just six deliveries and Delhi’s run fest. It was his innings towards the end that propelled Delhi towards the 200-run mark. 6/10 Jaydev Unadkat Unadkat turned out to be very expensive in his first spell once again, but returned in his second spell and picked up the wickets of Iyer, Pant and Shankar at the death. He finished with figures of 4-0-46-3. 5/10 Jofra Archer Archer turned out to be quite expensive on Wednesday as he leaked 31 runs in 3.1 overs. However, he did what he does best as he bowled a perfect yorker to trap Glenn Maxwell lbw towards the end of the Delhi innings. Krishnappa Gowtham Gowtham leaked 27 runs off the two overs he bowled. However, he made a valiant effort towards the end with the bat as he scored 18 runs off just six deliveries. His team still fell short of the target by four runs. Shreyas Gopal Gopal was once again included in the team at the expense of Ish Sodhi. Iyer and Shaw took him to the cleaners in his very first over. It was the same thing in his second over too, but Gopal bowled a very well-disguised flighted delivery to dismiss Shaw caught and bowled. 4/10 Dhawal Kulkarni Although he proved to be quite expensive later on, he presented beautiful example of swing bowling in his first over when he dismissed Colin Munro for a golden duck. Kulkarni registered figures of 3-0-37-1. 3/10 Glenn Maxwell Maxwell scored just five runs with the bat and leaked 21 runs in the only over he bowled. However, he picked up the all important wicket of Short who was just starting to find his feet. 2/10 Rahul Tripathi Tripathi tried his best to get his team over the line. But his best was not good enough as he struggled to get any real purchase for his shots and was ultimately dismissed for a run-a-ball nine. 1/10 Colin Munro The Royals’ bowling attack was probably the swashbuckling Kiwi batsman’s best bet to notch up a good score. However, he was dismissed by the early swing of Kulkarni for a golden duck. Ben Stokes Stokes isn’t having the best of times this year. He conceded 28 runs in his three overs without picking up a wicket and then was out for a solitary run which didn’t help Rajasthan’s cause at all. Sanju Samson Samson is one of the contenders for the Orange Cap this season and has been pretty consistent with the bat so far. However, he got dismissed for just three runs on Wednesday. Avesh Khan He has shown very good form with the ball in the league so far. But he was totally taken apart by Buttler in this match as he was smashed for 36 runs in his two overs. Liam Plunkett Plunkett once again proved to be expensive. He conceded 37 runs in his three overs and went wicketless. NA Shahbaz Nadeem Nadeem bowled just one over in the match and conceded 13 runs. It would be unfair to rate him just on the basis of this single over. Ajinkya Rahane The Rajasthan skipper didn’t bat at all in this match, and so it would be unfair to rate him as well. Rating chart: 10-9: Excellent, 8-7: Good, 6-5: Average, 4-3: Poor, 2-1: Very poor