KOLKATA: A depleted Delhi outfit came up with a strong performance to make the most of a rain-reduced IPL match against Kolkata, which surrendered by 8 wickets with some 50,000 of their adoring fans in attendance at the Eden Gardens on Thursday.

Invited to set a target after a long delay resulted in a 12 overs-a-side game, Kolkata scored 97 for the loss of 9 wickets after a disastrous start, and the total proved woefully inadequate.

Virender Sehwag (20 off 13) and Aaron Finch (30 off 27) provided a blistering start for Delhi with a 49-run partnership in 38 balls, and Irfan Pathan weathered a wobble to finished it off with a 20-ball 42 that had three sixes and a couple of fours. It was all over in the first ball of the final over. Delhi 100 for 2.

Laxmi Ratan Shukla (26 off 17), Debabrata Das (18 off 9) and Gautam Gambhir (16 off 15) made the most significant contributions in the Kolkata innings as the reduced T20 match became an even more slam-bang affair.

Delhi did well to chip away at the wickets, and a partnership of substance happened as late as the seventh wicket, when Shukla and Das added 31 in 23 balls. South African pacer Morne Morkel, using the freshness in the wicket that the weather brought, ended up with three wickets.

A nor’wester that lashed the city some half-an-hour before the scheduled start, and was accompanied by the summer’s strongest showers, added another twist to the tale in what was Eden’s first match in Season 5.

Sehwag won a good toss to queer the pitch further for the hosts, the pre-match favourites before the weather butted in. While the groundsmen worked hard to get the pitch and outfield ready after some 45 minutes of rain, there was no escaping this feeling that the fans that turned up and braved the dust and rain probably missed out on a longer game because of the outdated methods still being used. Appalling covers management, made worse by the lack of adequate man-power and a chaotic coordination, saw a delay in both covering and uncovering of the ground.

Brendon McCullum, back in the Kolkata ranks after a season with Kochi, began in murderous mood before South African left-arm spinner Roelf van der Merwe got him.

Skipper Gambhir walked in to join Jacques Kallis but Kallis and Manoj Tiwary left early. Irfan needn’t have fretted over facing his brother in a crunch situation, at least in the first half of the match, Yusuf using just four deliveries and failing to score.

Local lad Debabrata Das, who joined Gambhir, was a revelation. Getting off the blocks slowly, he was soon racing with a six each off Morkel and Maxwell. Then things suddenly seemed to go off the rails.

Gambhir played on to Morkel just as he and Das were beginning to up the ante but Laxmi Ratan Shukla, coming into IPL 5 riding form, made a mess in the very next ball, refusing a second run even as Das was upon him and also ignoring the chance to sacrifice his wicket to keep the marauding Das in the middle.

Shukla did make amends with a couple of big overs that saw him make a 17-ball 26 with a couple of sixes, but things could have been so much better had Das been around to accompany him with Morkel having completed his quota of three overs.

Brett Lee used the long handle and Kolkata managed 97 for 9 in the end, asking Delhi to get them at just over eight runs an over.