The Delhi Daredevils had made it a habit of falling over if their top three failed, and despite the middle-order coming good in their final group game, the 105-run loss put their strengths in perspective. Now that they have been knocked out, they will have the time to sit down and wonder if they would’ve actually reached the semis had it not been for Gautam Gambhir and Virender Sehwag.The captain was confident enough in the top three to put Rajasthan in, with good reason too. Between them, the opening duo had 940 runs between them in 14 matches. Where did they go wrong then? First, they conceded far too many runs, Shane Watson, Yusuf Pathan and Swapnil Asnodkar chipping in to take the total to 192.And Delhi’s chase crumbled right at the top, after the two openers fell for just 23 runs. A quick look through Delhi’s performances this IPL season shows that except for their last league game against the Mumbai Indians, where Dinesh Karthik scored 56 at number six, the team’s batting throughout their first 12 games had invariably rested on the shoulders of Sehwag and Gambhir. In the seven league matches that Delhi won, either Sehwag or Gambhir or both of them (with Shikhar Dhawan contributing on two occasions), got runs. The two reputed openers, who won the Ranji Trophy for Delhi this season, collectively scored seven half centuries. When Delhi lost their first match to Punjab, neither batsman got into double figures; in their defeat to Mumbai, Sehwag’s 40 remained the team’s highest individual total. In their third defeat of the tournament, Delhi fell short of Chennai’s total by a mere six runs and even in that game, Gambhir’s 80 remained the highest. When they lost to Rajasthan Royals by three wickets, Gambhir — at 31 — remained the highest individual scorer.
