Karun Nair breaks lean spell for Delhi Daredevils, scores first 50 of IPL 2017

Karun Nair, Delhi Daredevils skipper, ended his prolonged lean patch in IPL 2017 with an attacking fifty to revive his team against Rising Pune Supergiant.

Karun Nair led finally broke his lean patch with the bat and smashed his maiden fifty for Delhi Daredevils in the IPL 2017 clash against Rising Pune Supergiant at the Ferozeshah Kotla on Friday. (DD vs RPS: T20 MATCH BLOG)

Delhi Daredevils' Karun Nair plays a shot against Mumbai Indians in an Indian Premier League (IPL) 2017 match. (AP)

After choosing to bat, Delhi Daredevils lost Sanju Samson (2) and Shreyas Iyer (3) cheaply but Nair shared a wonderful partnership with Rishabh Pant to revive the innings. Nair got going by slog-sweeping Washington Sundar twice for a boundary. (DD vs RPS: T20 MATCH SCORECARD)

This gave the Delhi Daredevils plenty of confidence and he punished Ben Stokes by slamming three fours in the England all-rounder’s first over. The attacking stand between Nair and Pant put Rising Pune Supergiant on the back-foot but the 74-run stand ended when Pant mistimed the lofted shot off Adam Zampa to be dismissed for 36.

However, Nair held firm and he notched up his landmark in the 16th over by nudging Washington Sundar to deep square leg to bring up his eighth fifty in the tournament off 37 balls. Before this match, the right-handed batsman was undergoing a lean patch, having managed scores of just 4,DNB,0,21,33,5,15,11,39,12,21,30.