Johannesburg, May 10: Tournament favourites Delhi Daredevils stretched their winning run to three matches, completing an easy seven-wicket win over Kolkata Knight Riders in their IPL match here on Sunday.

Having been kicked out of the tournament thanks to their shoddy performance up front, the Kolkata outfit were under no pressure whatsoever going into the match. The situation demanded an improved show, but the Knight Riders continued to belie expectations. And Delhi capitalised big time, romping home with 17 balls to spare.

The Knight Riders struggled to post 123/8 in 20 overs and then had no answers to the pyrotechnics dished out by Delhi’s opening combine of David Warner (36, 23 balls) and Gautam Gambhir (18, 24 balls). The duo amassed 53 runs in close to seven overs and then left the rest of the batting line-up to apply the finishing touches to the run chase.

A hiccup in the form of one-down Tillakaratne Dilshan’s wicket looked to veer Delhi off the track, but AB de Villers (32-ball 40) and wicketkeeper-batsman Dinesh Karthik (22-ball 17) kept their cool towards the end, racking up 56 runs for the third wicket.

The win, infact, could have been lot more comprehensive had Sourav Ganguly (44) and Ajit Agarkar (39) not rescued Kolkata from a woeful situation earlier. At 56/6, the beleaguered side were in the pits and a much-needed rearguard action from the two gave Kolkata something to defend. But, as things panned out, it was not enough. With this win, Delhi zoomed back to the top of the table with 14 points from nine matches.

Earlier, Daredevils’s last match hero Ashish Nehra struck two telling blows in the opening over to send openers Brendon McCullum and Brad Hodge back into the pavilion with the scores reading 7/2.

McCullum (6, 3 balls) struck a massive six before falling leg before to Nehra off the very next delivery. Hodge followed two balls later offering a simple catch to de Villiers at slips.

Next in Morne van Wyk couldn’t revive Kolkata’s dipping fortunes who were clearly in a mess. Paceman Dirk Nannes scalped the in-form batsman to make it 12/3. The writing was on the wall for the Knight Riders who never recovered from the early setback. Ganguly stood his ground even as wickets kept tumbling at the other end. Agarkar did some repair lower down the order.

Scores: Kolkata Knight Riders 123/8 in 20 overs (S. Ganguly 44, A. Agarkar 39; A. Nehra 2/29, D. Nannes 2/15, A. Mishra 3/14) lost to Delhi Daredevils 125/3 in 17.1 overs (G. Gambhir 18, D. Warner 36, AB de Villiers 40 not out, D. Karthik 17 not out; I. Sharma 2/23, M. Henriques 1/35).