New Delhi: Gautam Gambhir played a captain's innings to carry Kolkata Knight Riders to a 6-wicket win over Delhi Daredevils n their IPL encounter at Delhi's&nbsp;Feroz Shah Kotla on Monday night.
Gambhir led from the front with a 49-ball 60 as defending champions ropmed home with 11 balls to spare.
Chasing 147, openers Gambhir and Robin Uthappa provided Kolkata with a solid start as the visitors raced away to 31 in 4.1 overs. Gambhir&rsquo;s innings was laced with eight fours.
Kolkata chased down the target with Yusuf Pathan remaining unbeaten on 40.
Domnic Muthuswami with 2-18 was the pick of the bowlers for Delhi.
<img src="http://images.mid-day.com/images/images/2015/apr/21gambhir.jpg" alt="Gautam Gambhir" /> Gautam Gambhir of Kolkata Knight Riders in full flow against Delhi Daredevils at Feroz Shah Kotla Stadium in New Delhi on Monday. Pic/PTI&nbsp;
Earlier, the KKR bowlers led by pacers Morne&nbsp;Morkel and Umesh Yadav bowled a tight line to restrict Delhi&nbsp;Daredevils to 146 for eight Put into bat, DD were hurt by lack of partnerships but a&nbsp;late flourish from Angelo Mathews (21-ball 28) helped the home&nbsp;side get some respect to their total as Morkel and Yadav&nbsp;picked two wickets apiece.
The South African pacer (2-30) drew first blood after&nbsp;getting Mayank Agarwal (1) caught at long leg with Umesh Yadav&nbsp;taking a sprawling catch.&nbsp;
Mystery spinner Sunil Narine then struck in his very&nbsp;first over, cleaning up skipper Jean-Paul Duminy (5), who was&nbsp;done in by an off-spinner that was pitched outside the&nbsp;leg-stump to the left-hander.
Young batsman Shreyas Iyer (31) then counter-attacked to&nbsp;stitch a 36-run partnership with Manoj Tiwary (32).
Just when it seemed the Mumbai-born player, who hit 3&nbsp;fours and a six, was ready to take on the KKR bowlers,&nbsp;leg-spinner Piyush Chawla got the dangerman cleaned up in the&nbsp;ninth over.&nbsp;
Tiwary then joined hands with Yuvraj Singh (21) to not&nbsp;only rebuild the DD innings after the strategic time out but&nbsp;also improve the scoring-rate with a few hits to the fence.&nbsp;
But the Bengal player, whose 28-ball stay was laced with&nbsp;5 fours, was scalped by Morkel after he mis-timed a pull to&nbsp;short mid-wicket as the fourth wicket 37-run partnership came&nbsp;to an end.
Yuvraj's brief stay at the crease also came to an end in&nbsp;what looked like a funny stumping off Chawla after the&nbsp;left-hander had lost sight of the white ball while attempting&nbsp;a sweep and wicketkeeper Robin Uthappa was sharp to take the&nbsp;bails off only in the second attempt.
KKR bowlers continued to hurt the DD batting after Umesh&nbsp;Yadav got Kedar Jadhav (12) caught at backward point on the&nbsp;last ball of his third over.
But Mathews got stuck into Narine, hitting the&nbsp;off-spinner for two consecutive sixes and ended the 19th over&nbsp;with a boundary to get 20 runs of the West Indians' final&nbsp;over.
Nathan Coulter-Nile was run out in the final over of the&nbsp;innings and Mathews was caught behind off the final delivery&nbsp;with Yadav ending with impressive figures of 2-18.&nbsp;
Brief Scores:
DD 146-8 in 20 overs (M Tiwary 32; U Yadav 2-18) lost to KKR: 147-4 in 18.1 overs (G Gambhir 60, Y Pathan 40*; D Muthuswami 2-18) by six wickets&nbsp;

Gautam Gambhir plays a captain&rsquo;s knock to hand Kolkata Knight Riders a six-wicket win over Delhi Daredevils

IPL 8: Gambhir fifty helps KKR cruise past Delhi Daredevils

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IPL 8: Gambhir fifty helps KKR cruise past Delhi Daredevils

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