IPL 20-20 Cricket

Kolkata Knight Riders rode on a sensational opening spell from Shoaib Akhtar to pull off a fine 23-run win over Delhi Daredevils.

Shoaib, much in the headlines for all the wrong reasons, showed why he is rated so highly, and shattered the much-vaunted Delhi top-order, removing skipper Virender Sehwag, tournament top-scorer Gautam Gambhir, AB de Villiers and Manoj Tiwary in a span of three overs.

Laxmi Ratan Shukla also did his bit, claiming the last three Delhi wickets in just five balls to end the proceedings.

For Delhi, Tillekeratne Dilshan and Amit Mishra showed some fight but nothing else worked as they slid to their fourth straight defeat.

Earlier, Kolkata never got off the ground against a sustained Delhi bowling and finished with a very moderate 133-6 in their 20 overs.

No Kolkata batsman apart from Salman Butt and to some extent David Hussey, managed to get any measure of the Delhi bowling and struggled for runs throughout.

Butt scored a polished 48 and Hussey contributed 31. Faraveez Maharoof and V. Yomahesh claimed two wickets each.

Earlier, Sourav Ganguly welcomed Shoaib Akhtar to his playing XI, and then decided to give him a breather, as the hosts batted first.

With the table beginning to get pretty tight up top, both teams, strung together in the middle of the points tally, need to win this one.

In an effort towards that, Ganguly called up Shoaib to bolster his bowling, while young left-arm spinner Iqbal Abdullah also comes in, in place of Murali Kartik.

For Delhi, skipper Virender Sehwag kept out Dinesh Karthik and called in Manoj Tiwary.