Preview: Beleaguered Delhi look for redemption against Rajasthan
By Suneer Chowdhary
Jaipur: Apr 12, 2011
The Rajasthan Royals have gone through a lot in the preceding six months or so and their win over the Deccan Chargers at Hyderabad would have tasted rather sweet. Now, with the sentimentality cast aside, it is time for them to move on, back to their home ground, to play the second game against the Delhi Daredevils on Tuesday.
The Royals, led by the indefatigable and strangely thinner-looking Shane Warne came out with the tactics that they usually do. Gut feels and whims define Warne as a captain and it was no different with the selection and the batting order. And don’t be surprised if all of it changes for the game against the Delhi.
There was no Swapnil Asnodkar at the top for starters. The little-known Amit Paunikar went out with Rahul Dravid. Then, having watched Johan Botha bat at three in the practice game before the start of the tournament, Warne pushed him to that position, in turning getting an unbeaten half century from the South African off-spinner.
The core of the side will probably remain the same for this game but there could be a chance or two to some of the bowlers.
The Daredevils have also played one match and would hope for some form of redemption from their performance in that one. They were pretty listless against the pace of Lasith Malinga and apart from the middle overs where the pair of Venugopal Rao and Naman Ojha scrapped hard to add 42 runs for the fifth wicket, the rest fell in a heap.
Batting changes can be expected after a 95 all out, but given that it was only the first game of the tournament and a lot of it could be attributed to the way Lasith Malinga bowled, Virender Sehwag and the think-tank may look to go in unchanged in their batting.
The bowling is quite another issue. In fact, it is blasphemous to even think of going into a tournament in India on drying tracks in April with four pace bowler, but that is exactly what happened. Ashok Dinda was the most economical of the lot while Morne Morkel picked up a wicket, but to have Umesh Yadav and Irfan Pathan following up was strange.
This may change for the game. Yogesh Nagar, who has been with the team for the last two seasons, could get a chance in place of the one of the aforementioned India pace bowlers with Morkel expected to be retained to test some of the likes of Dravid and Ross Taylor.
A point to be noted here is that in their game against the Chargers, where the Royals had pulled things back was in the middle of the innings through Trivedi and Warne. Delhi, on the other hand, are a top-heavy side; with Sehwag, David Warner and Aaron Finch forming the top three of their line-up. This could lead to further trouble for the Daredevils if they ended up losing a wicket or two early – may be a cause for shuffling one of three down the order, or replacing a foreigner with someone like Colin Ingram.
Similarly, as hazardous as it may sound, one can venture to predict that after the success that Malinga had against Delhi, Warne may want to pick Shaun Tait.
Teams
Rajasthan (Probable): Amit Paunikar (wk), Rahul Dravid, Ajinkya Rahane, Ross Taylor, Ashok Menaria, Johan Botha, Shane Warne (c), Siddharth Trivedi, Amit Singh, Stuart Binny, Shaun Tait.
Delhi (Probable): Virender Sehwag (c), Dave Warner, Aaron Finch, Naman Ojha (wk), Umukt Chand, Venugopal Rao, Irfan Pathan, Roelof van der Merwe, Yogesh Nagar, Morne Morkel, Ashok Dinda.
(Suneer is a Mumbai-based cricket writer and can be contacted at suneerchowdhary@gmail.com and Tweets here: @suneerchowdhary)
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