Delhi eye happy homecoming
The league stage of the Indian Premier League is half way through and Delhi Capitals are peaking at the right time with two back-to-back victories to keep themselves in contention for the knockout stage. Delhi registered two impressive wins against Lucknow Super Giants and Gujarat Titans by identical margins of six wickets to bounce back from two straight losses.
On Saturday, Rishabh Pant & Co. will look to extending their winning run when they play their first match at their home ground of Arun Jaitley Stadium here against ‘super hot’ Sunrisers Hyderabad. SRH have been flying high and have twice posted recordbreaking IPL totals this edition — 287/3 in their last game against Royal Challengers Bengaluru, bettering the 277/3 against Mumbai Indians.
With a lethal batting line-up led by Travis Head, Heinrich Klassen, Aiden Makram and new sensation Abhishek Sharma, it would be interesting to see how the Delhi bowlers quell the challenge.
In their last match, a cohesive and collective effort by the Delhi bowlers — led by Mukesh Kumar, who bagged three wickets, while old horse Ishant Sharma and Tristan Stubbs scalped two apiece — packed Gujarat Titans for just 89 in 17.3 overs in Ahmedabad. Pant’s men then chased the target down in just 8.5 overs.
DC skipper Pant seems to be hitting his stride at just the right time. With his batting showing improvement and leadership
inspiring those around him, the team is confident that Saturday’s win would improve the team’s net run rate further.
The Capitals have three wins this season and have moved up to the sixth position in the points table with six points in seven matches while SRH are fourth with eight points and four wins in six games.
While SRH’s batting has been impressive on batting friendly pitches, their bowlers failed to replicate the show as they have suffered a lot on those tracks with only skipper Pat Cummins (7.87) returning with an economy rate of less than 8 per over. Except the Australian star, none of the SRH bowlers figure in the top 10.