BANGALORE, May 20: An opening partnership of 90 runs in just seven overs between Virender Sehwag and Gautam Gambhir sped Delhi Daredevils to a cakewalk victory over Bangalore Royal Challengers in the Indian Premier League match at the M. Chinnaswamy Stadium on Monday (also partly reported in Tuesday’s edition).

Sehwag thumped his way to 47 off 19 deliveries and left-handed Gambhir notched 39 as the home side were left with little chance of improving their disastrous run in the tournament and lost by five wickets.

Sehwag enjoyed playing the pull shot in particular as Delhi made most of the early field restrictions. He struck one six and nine fours and was out playing a cut shot straight to point after taking 19 runs off the preceding five deliveries of a Praveen Kumar over.

Gambhir fell a little later, run out, after having hit five fours in his 31-ball innings. Delhi were pegged back a little as the score read 100-2 and veteran Anil Kumble did pick a couple of wickets as the Bangalore outfit’s spirits picked up, but a fight was not in the offing as the match was decided with 10 balls still to go.

It was the sixth win in 12 matches for Delhi, who are in with a chance of making the semi-finals, while no-hopers Bangalore crashed to their ninth defeat in 11 matches.

Earlier, Shreevats Goswami celebrated his birthday a day late with an impressive knock on his IPL debut. The diminutive left-hander, who was part of the India under-19 squad that won the World Cup not too long ago, struck a 42-ball 52 as Bangalore scored 154-7.

Man-of-the-Match Goswami became the youngest to score a fifty in the tournament, striking one six and seven fours during his cameo. But with Misbah-ul-Haq (47 not out off 25 balls, four sixes and two fours) the only other batsman able to clobber the ball around, Bangalore could not get a challenging score on the board.

Summarised scores:

BANGALORE ROYAL CHALLENGERS 154-7 in 20 overs (Shreevats Goswami 52, Misbah-ul-Haq 47 not out, Jacques Kallis 25; Farveez Maharoof 2-13, Glenn McGrath 2-15); DELHI DAREDEVILS 158-5 in 18.2 overs (Virender Sehwag 47, Gautam Gambhir 39, A.B. de Villiers 21; Anil Kumble 2-18).—Agencies