Kedar Jadhav's valiant unbeaten knock of 63 in 34 balls went in vain as Delhi Daredevils lost to Sunrisers Hyderabad by six runs in an Indian Premier League encounter at the Shaheed Veer Narayan Singh International Stadium here on Saturday.
After winning the toss and choosing to bat, Sunrisers posted 163/4 thanks to Moises Henriques' unbeaten knock of 74 in 46 balls.
In reply, Daredevils chase started wth Quinton de Kock's pacy 50 off 31 deliveries before Jadhav's explosion at the end nearly helped them reach the the shore.
It was their eighth loss of the season.
Daredevils have eight points from 12 matches and are seventh, one place ahead of Kings XI Punjab, while Sunrisers jumped to the fourth spot with 12 points from 11 matches.
Earlier, Sunrisers seemed to have been struggling to up the run rate after losing regular wickets against the Daredevils' bowlers, who put up a disciplined show at their adopted home ground.
Sunrisers got off to a poor start, losing dynamic openers David Warner (17) and Shikhar Dhawan (13) early. While veteran left-arm pacer Zaheer Khan accounted for Dhawan, Nathan Coulter-Nile removed skipper Warner.
At 31/2 in 4.1 overs, Australian Henriques and Englishman Eoin Morgan (22) joined forces but their 33-run partnership ended before it could flourish.
Jayant Yadav broke the stand just when it was getting settled and it dented the Sunrisers' progress. Their 33-run stand for the third wicket came off 6.3 overs.
Karn Sharma was promoted up the order and he contributed only 16 runs in a 35-run partnership for the fourth wicket with all-rounder Henriques. Karn was dismissed by Coulter-Nile as the batsman mistimed one to Jayant at point.
Next in line, Ravi Bopara played scored an unbeaten 17 off just 11 balls and he along with Henriques, forged a 64-run undefeated stand for the fifth wicket.
In the 19th over bowled by Albie Morkel, Henriques launched two sixes while Bopara collected seven runs, enabling the visitors to get to a competitive total.
Henriques took his time before executing his big shots. He hit five big sixes and one four.
In pursuit of 164, Daredevils failed to get a good beginning. Sunrisers medium pacer Bhubaneswar Kumar removed opener Shreyas Iyer for zero.
Skipper Jean-Paul Duminy came to the crease but he did not look his fluent self. De Kock was in his element, however, collecting boundaries at will through the off side before he lost his wicket to leg-spinner Karn (2/12) in the second ball of the ninth over and left them at 60/2.
A flurry of wickets fell for the hosts as IPL's costliest buy, Yuvraj Singh (2), and Duminy fell within the next two overs.
While Parvez Rasool sent Yuvraj packing, Karn castled Duminy to dump the Daredevils at 66/4 in 10.2 overs.
However, Jadhav and Saurabh Tiwary (26) exercised damage control. Jadhav started his onslaught in the 14th over of the innings bowled by Ravi Bopara, who conceded 15 runs.
With the score at 105/4 in 15 overs, Daredevils needed a big over and Praveen Kumar provided it. Praveen suffered at the hands of Jadhav, who milked the Uttar Pradesh bowler for two sixes and a four.
Jadhav continued to flay the Sunrisers bowlers and at the end of the 19th over, the Daredevils needed only 16.
Ishant Sharma, however, gave away only nine runs.
