Delhi Daredevils 140/6 (20/20 ov) Kochi Tuskers Kerala 141/3 (15.0/20 ov)
Kochi Tuskers Kerala won by 7 wickets (with 30 balls remaining)
Brendon McCullum took off bringing up Kochi Tuskers' fifty in just four overs as the visitors were well on their way chasing 141 to beat Delhi Daredevils in their Indian Premier League match here on Monday.
But Morne Morkel breathed life into Delhi's defence of an average score as he nailed the explosive New Zealander after he had hammered the hosts for 37 runs off just 19 balls.
Later Hodge and P Patel consolidated to give comprehensive 7 wicket win victory for Kochi in 15th over.
Earlier, Delhi Daredevils' middle-order let them down yet again as the hosts just about managed to score a modest 140 for six.
As has been the story so far, the team's middle-order once again struggled after the early dismissals of openers Virender Sehwag (15) and David Warner (13).
Y Venugopal Rao (40 off 36 balls) top scored for the hosts while Travis Birt made a quick-fire 27 towards the end.
The wicket was lively, giving some assistance to the pacemen, but it was also good for stroke-making and the Delhi batsmen have only themselves to blame for not putting up a challenging total.
Prasanth Parameswaran (2/29), playing his first game, and R Vinay Kumar (2/25) shared four wickets between them.
Delhi had lost their first three wickets by the seventh over after being sent in to bat. After that, Venugopal and Yogesh Nagar (18) raised a 54-run partnership but consumed 8.3 overs to score those runs and worse, could not provide the fireworks towards the end.
Kochi knew the value of Sehwag's wicket and Prasanth got them the prized scalp.
Sehawg had sounded the alarm bells for Kochi by hitting RP Singh for two fours in the opening over and then, clobbered Prasanth for a huge six, but the visitors heaved a sigh of relief when the Delhi marauder edged one off Prasanth to keeper Parthiv Patel.
Naman Ojha then treated Prasanth with utter contempt, lofting him for a six and a four.
In Sehwag's absence Delhi needed Warner to anchor the innings but he too departed when his miscued pull off S Sreesanth went straight to R Vinay Kumar at mid-on.
Jayawardene then brought RP Singh back and the laft-arm paceman responded with the wicket of Ojha (13).
Venugopal and Nagar dug in but the run-rate suffered and there was a time when not a single boundary was scored for 17 balls.
Rao hit Raipihi Gomez for a four in the 10th over as Delhi reached 62 for three at half-way mark.
Nagar got his first boundary in a bizarre, rather funny, fashion. Vinay Kumar tried a slower one but the ball popped out of his hand and bounced twice. A confused Nagar, who reached the middle of the pitch by then, hit that to mid-wicket boundary.
Runs were coming only through ones and twos and Delhi needed the duo to stay till the end, but it was not to be as as Nagar fell to Vinay Kumar and Venugopal became Prasanth's second victim.
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