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Hyderabad: Washington Sundar's allround effort went in vain as Sunrisers Hyderabad made heavy weather of a below-par chase to go down to Delhi Capitals by seven runs, their third defeat in a row in the IPL, here on Monday.
The offspin allrounder Sundar (4-0-28-3) and Bhuvneshwar Kumar (4-0-11-2) exposed the batting frailties of Delhi Capitals' in the first half of the game to restrict them to 144/9 after David Warner opted to bat.
But an inexplicable batting approach in which SRH never looked to dominate led to their downfall as they were restricted to 137/6.
Having lost half of their side for 85 runs in 14.1 overs, SRH's recovery was led by Heinrich Klaasen (31; 19b, 3x4, 1x6) and Sundar who came up with 15-ball 24 not out (3x4s).
But it proved not enough as Anrich Nortje (4-0-33-2) dismissed his South African temmate, before Mukesh Kumar bowled a terrific last over to defend 13 runs to hand Delhi a narrow yet thrilling second consecutive win of the season.
Delhi, who began the season with a five-match losing streak, however stayed at the bottom of the table with four points.
Kolkata Knight Riders and SRH, who too have four points, remained ahead on net run-rate.
Harry Brook's largely disappointing IPL debut season extended further and Mayank Agarwal (49) failed to make the most of two lifelines.
Delhi Capitals gradually strengthened their grip on the game by taking four wickets -- Agarwal, Rahul Tripathi (15), Abhishek Sharma (5) and Aiden Markam (3) in quick succession in the middle overs, and allowing a mere three fours between overs 5 to 15 which highlighted SRH's plight.
[bsa_pro_ad_space id=1]Agarwal got an early lifeline when Mitchell Marsh could not hold onto a tough chance on his right, at first slip off Ishant Sharma in the opening over.
The right-hander got a second lifeline on 47 when a flick shot off Marsh landed close to Mukesh at short fine leg, but he soon ran out of luck.
Axar Patel deceived the batter in flight, only to hit it straight to Aman Khan in the 12th over.
Agarwal made 49 from 39 balls with seven fours, adding 31 and 38 runs with Brook and Tripathi, for the first and second wickets respectively, but never looked on top of the proceedings.
[bsa_pro_ad_space id=1]The dismissal of Agarwal had Delhi's tails up in the 12th over, and their impact substitute Ishant dealt a severe blow getting SRH's impact player Tripathi caught behind for a 21-ball 15.
SRH's slide continued with Abhishek (5) hitting one straight back to Kuldeep Yadav in the 14th over and in the next, Axar had Markram chopping one on to leave the home side reeling at 86/5.
With 51 needed from last four overs, Klaasen and Sundar revived SRH with a 26-ball 41-run stand for the sixth wicket, but their effort came too late.
Earlier, Sundar ended his six-match wicketless run to take three wickets in five balls to break the back of Delhi Capitals' batting line-up after they opted to bat.
Then Bhuvneswhar came up with a parsimonious spell of 4-0-11-2, which included the key wickets of Phil Salt (0) and Axar (34) to rattle Delhi further.
Delhi Capitals slipped from 57 for 2 to 62 for 5 after the powerplay, and had their backs firmly pressed against the wall.
Patel (34) and Manish Pandey (34) saved some blushes for Delhi, who remained at the bottom of the points table.
The pair did well to add 69 runs for the sixth wicket taking Delhi Capitals past the 100-run mark and prevented a total collapse.
Patel hit a run-a-ball 34 with four hits to the fence while Pandey was run out following a brilliant throw from deep midwicket by Sundar soon after, for a 27-ball 34 (2x4s).
The tone was set earlier by Bhuvaneshwar who struck on the third delivery to get Phil Salt caught behind by Klaasen and kept David Warner silent for the majority of his opening spell.
The Delhi captain, who broke the shackles to get a four and a six off Sundar in the fourth over, perished right after the powerplay with the spin bowling all-rounder running through the middle-order in the eighth over.
Warner, who perished for a 20-ball 21, was caught at deep square leg by Brook on the second ball while trying to sweep.
Delhi sunk further as comeback batter Sarfaraz Khan (10) was the next to fall to the sweep shot, on the fourth delivery from Sundar, caught by Bhuvneshwar at deep backward square leg.
Aman struck a first-ball four but got a top edge off Sundar on the final delivery.
DC's No 3 Marsh began with four boundaries off Marco Jansen in the second over, which got them 19 runs but he was deceived by a slower delivery from T Natarajan, who had the batter trapped leg-before for a 15-ball 25 (4x4s).