How bad the tournament can be, right? We have the champion player, the world’s best, captaining a side that is offering literally nothing. Will this make Kohli, the captain better?
Will this make Kohli the batsman go harder than he normally would?
No matter whom they select in their line-up, things go awful for them. Probably, in the last match against KKR, they showed intent with the bat but they were too bad with the ball. Southee, their only big bowling option failed miserably the other night.
Do they have any other player in the squad to solve the chaos?
They haven’t tried two players so far and who knows they can turn good for the team. One is Washington Sundar who can open the innings as well and bowl well in the powerplay which we have already seen. The other player is Kulwant Khejroliya. Kohli tried him the last season and he turned unsuccessful but right now they don’t have an option than to try him out as well.
The main reason why teams like Chennai Super Kings and Mumbai Indians are successful in this tournament is that they have their core players and each of their players stand up for the team. If one fails, the other rises. Take the Mumbai Indians the other night. The entire team batting failed but Pollard, their experienced candidate stood up. For CSK, Faf du Plessis, playing just his first match, knew exactly what he had to do.
Coming to this match, the team needs Kohli and De Villiers to perform well once again. In the bowling department, Chahal has been the only one who is economical and he will hold the key once again. A lot depends on their death bowling options.
With a team comprising of youngsters, Delhi Capitals has done well though they lost matches where the victory was pulled from their mouth. They do have their own problems and inconsistency is one of them. Delhi would look to address it for sure.
Cricbuzz Probable XI:
DC: Prithvi Shaw, Shikhar Dhawan, Shreyas Iyer(c), Rishabh Pant(w), Colin Ingram, Axar Patel, Chris Morris/Trent Boult, Rahul Tewatia, Kagiso Rabada, Sandeep Lamichhane, Ishant Sharma
RCB: Parthiv Patel (wk), Virat Kohli (c), AB de Villiers, Shimron Hetmyer, Marcus Stoinis, Akshdeep Nath, Pawan Negi, Washington Sundar, Umesh Yadav/Tim Southee, Navdeep Saini, Yuzvendra Chahal
Vale, Professor Deano | Dean Jones