Delhi: Apr 22, 2013
Two teams on a high after recording much-needed wins clash at the Feroz Shah Kotla Tuesday evening when Delhi Daredevils host the Kings XI Punjab in the Indian Premier League (IPL).
Delhi notched their first win of the tournament after six failed attempts when they beat the Mumbai Indians on Sunday by a thumping nine-wicket margin. The Daredevils had been undone by the top order in their six losses and had fielded various combinations among the top three slots, before captain Mahela Jayawardene decided to promote himself to the opening position along with
Virender Sehwag.
The plan worked for the Daredevils as they made a joke of the otherwise competitive target of 162 set by Mumbai. Sehwag got stability and an immovable anchor at the other end in Jayawardene, that gave him the opportunity to play his strokes freely without any worry. When Sehwag enters the groove, it isn’t often that Delhi lose a match and that’s exactly what happened as the Nawab of Najafgarh pummelled Mumbai for an unbeaten
95 off just 57 balls to set up the victory.
Delhi’s only problem is that if their top three fail, they don’t have anyone to rely on in the middle-order to take the team through. Wicketkeeper-batsman Kedar Jadhav has taken the team out of a tight spot on more than one occasions, but he wouldn’t mind someone else stepping up to the plate as well.
In their bowling, Delhi rested their best bowler, Morne Morkel, against Mumbai and luckily it did not come to bite them. Delhi went for the extra batsmen in
Roelof van der Merwe, who should keep his spot, and Andre Russell, who hasn’t really warranted a place in the eleven yet. Shahbaz Nadeem has been tight as ever and is the go-to guy in the middle overs. Ajit Agarkar hasn’t done much in the two games he played and might make way for Ashish Nehra.
As for Punjab, skipper
Adam Gilchrist‘s form continues to be a worry and it will be interesting to see if he is dropped following a string of poor scores. Gilly has just managed 61 runs from six innings and looks a far shadow of the batsman he once was. The only problem here is that Punjab don’t have another genuine glovesman in their ranks and would have to bank on a make-shift one. Nitin Saini would be a right gamble behind the sticks.
Paul Valthaty could also make way for someone like Sunny Singh. The rest of the team should remain the same after an inspired performance against the Pune Warriors.
Teams:
Delhi Daredevils (Probable): Virender Sehwag, Mahela Jayawardene (c), David Warner, Venugopal Rao, Kedar Jadhav (wk), Roelof van der Merwe, Irfan Pathan, Shahbaz Nadeem, Morne Morkel, Ashish Nehra, Umesh Yadav.
Kings XI Punjab (Probable): Mandeep Singh, Nitin Saini (wk), Shaun Marsh, Manan Vohra, Sunny Singh, David Hussey, David Miller, Gurkeerat Singh, Azhar Mahmood, Piyush Chawla, Manpreet Gony, Praveen Kumar.
Time: 20.00 IST | 14.30 GMT
(Jaideep Vaidya is a multiple sports buff and a writer at CricketCountry. He has a B.E. in Electronics Engineering, but that isn’t fooling anybody. He started writing on sports during his engineering course and fell in love with it. The best day of his life came on April 24, 1998, when he witnessed birthday boy Sachin Tendulkar pummel a Shane Warne-speared Aussie attack from the stands during the Sharjah Cup Final. A diehard Manchester United fan, you can follow him on Twitter @jaideepvaidya. He also writes a sports blog – The Mullygrubber )
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