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De Villiers ‘thanks’ Albie for his century

DURBAN - Delhi Daredevils’ South African batsman A.B. De Villiers thanked compatriot Albie Morkel of Chennai Super Kings for missing an easy catch and allowing him to score a match winning century in the Indian Premier League (IPL) match here Thursday.

Albie dropped a sitter when De Villiers was on 50, and that allowed the Daredevils batsman to hit an unbeaten 105 off 54 balls, the first century in the second edition of the IPL. Daredevils won a thriller, beating Super Kings by nine runs.

A relaxed De Villiers said that it was a scratchy innings for him but he was happy that it helped Daredevils to win the match.

”It was a scratchy innings, especially the first 50 runs. I was a little bit of lucky to get to my century and thanks to Albie for giving me a chance,” said De Villiers.

Daredevils lost two early wickets and it was 68-run third-wicket partnership between De Villiers and Tillakaratne Dilshan (50) that set up the foundation for Daredevils’ huge score of 189/5 in 20 overs.

”We had to keep rotating the strike and the odd boundaries kept on coming. It was an unbelievable finish at the Kingsmead,” added De Villiers.

Daredevils captain Virender Sehwag said: “We knew they are a good batting side and asked my bowlers to bowl at them in the right areas. It is good to have two wins in as many matches.”

Super Kings captain Mahendra Singh Dhoni lauded his opening batsman Matthew Hayden (57) to keep alive the match till the last ball was bowled.

”Thanks to Hayden, because he got us back into the game. But the way A.B. (De Villiers) batted took the match away from us,” said Dhoni.