Twitter Reactions: Pant and Samson's heroics lead DD to a historic run chase

In what was a run-fest at the Feroze Shah Kotla stadium, Delhi Daredevils managed to stay in the hunt for the playoffs with a spectacular run chase. With this loss, the Gujarat Lions are out of the contention of being in the top 4. Earlier in the day, it was captain Karun Nair who won the toss as Delhi Daredevils elected to field first. Chris Morris and Angelo Mathews made way for Pat Cummins and Marlon Samuels in the playing XI. Gujarat Lions had an unchanged XI from their last game.

Batting first, both openers Dwayne Smith and Brendon McCullum were back to the dig out in the very first over. From there on, captain Suresh Raina and Dinesh Karthik combined for a magnificent partnership of 133 runs coming from just 72 balls. The Delhi bowling lineup was taken away to the cleaners.

While Raina scored a splendid 77 runs from just 43 deliveries, Dinesh Karthik also made his way with a sensational knock of 65 runs from 34 balls. After them, Aaron Finch and Ravindra Jadeja played crucial cameos as Gujarat Lions posted 208/7 in their quota of 20 overs.

Leaving Kagiso Rabada and Cummins who took a couple of wickets apart, no one managed to create any kind of pressure on the Gujarat batsmen. A target of 209 seemed difficult for the Daredevils batsmen but what followed was beyond imagination.

Nair was dismissed early in the Delhi innings. That’s where the duo of Rishabh Pant and Sanju Samson exhibited a tremendous display of clean hitting which and it proved to be a nightmare for the bowlers. Both put up an astounding 143 runs stand from just 63 deliveries for the second wicket.

Samson scored a brilliant 61 runs from 31 balls with 7 sixes. However, the star of the day was youngster Rishabh Pant who missed out on a well-deserved century as he smashed 97 (43), an innings which comprised of 6 boundaries and 9 sixes. After both of them got out, there was little left for Corey Anderson and Shreyas Iyer to finish it off.

The lesser we talk about the bowling today, the better. No one actually stood up for the Gujarat Lions who seemed to be deeply hurt by the absence of Dwayne Bravo and Andrew Tye. Delhi Daredevils went on to win by 7 wickets with 15 balls to spare.

Here are some of the amazing Twitter reactions that took place during the course of the game: