New Delhi, April 20: Delhi Capitals were languishing at the bottom of the Points Table for some time. They did win a few matches, but do not still look a formidable bunch to match those ahead in the race for play-offs, at this juncture of Indian Premier League (IPL) 2024.
But one thing is for sure that their talismanic skipper Rishabh Pant, who returned from a life threatening car accident, is slowly gaining his old touch. His gloves-work behind the stumps, big hits over the fence and even leadership skills have been really impressive.
Is Rishabh Pant fully fit to play ICC T20 Wold Cup 2024 later this year? Well, seems so. But at this point of time, Delhi Capitals captain Rishabh would be more eager to see his side do well, than his personal selection in Team India's T20 World Cup squad.
As a team, it seems that Delhi Capitals have just found their groove in IPL 2024, something which deserted them in the initial days of the competition. Back-to-back wins over Lucknow Super Giants and Gujarat Titans’ means the side are coming back to their original home ground, Arun Jaitley Stadium, on a confident note.
But sixth-placed resurgent DC have their task cut out straightaway – they will be hosting a tough and marauding Sunrisers Hyderabad outfit, standing in fourth place in the points table on Saturday evening. SRH, the IPL 2016 winners, have created a reputation for posting big totals on the back of blazing starts in power-play, thanks to their bevy of power-hitters.
Saturday’s match also marks Rishabh Pant’s long-awaited return of playing an IPL game at his home ground after 1813 days. The left-handed wicket-keeper’s last IPL match in Delhi was on May 4, 2019. By then, he had become the side’s lead keeper-batter.
His last appearance at the venue came when he was on crutches in his road to recovery after the car crash, and saw DC’s first game of IPL 2023 against Gujarat Titans from the stands. Now Pant returns to Kotla as DC’s captain, and has shown ample signs of slowly returning to his best self in all facets of the game.
With David Warner unavailable due to a finger injury at Ahmedabad, DC had young Jake Fraser-McGurk open the batting and was sparkling in his cameo to continue impressing everyone with his stroke play. With Pant, Abhishek Porel, Shai Hope, Tristan Stubbs and Prithvi Shaw (though he fell early in last match), in good nick, it augurs well for DC to have a good batting time at home.
In terms of wickets taken by teams in power-play, DC have picked 13 scalps, which is second-best in the tournament. Khaleel Ahmed has been the side’s leading wicket-taker with ten scalps, five of which have come in power-play.
Kuldeep Yadav has been at his magnificent best after recovering from a groin niggle, while Stubbs, Ishant Sharma, Axar Patel, and Mukesh Kumar have made handy contributions with the ball and DC would need their bowling attack to put their best foot forward again to counter SRH’s rampaging batters.
SRH, on the other hand, have been at their explosive best as a batting unit, especially after bettering their own IPL record of highest-ever score in the tournament by posting 287/3 against the Royal Challengers Bengaluru.
Their opening pair of Travis Head and Abhishek Sharma brought up the 100-run stand in just 7.1 overs, with the former making a sensational 102 off 41 balls. Heinrich Klaasen, Aiden Markram and Abdul Samad, along with young Nitish Kumar Reddy, have ensured that the batting momentum hasn’t suffered a drop after Head and Abhishek set the base for a big total.
Compared to their previous seasons, including being at the bottom of the points table last year, SRH are now reaping the benefits of collecting an ultra-aggressive and fearless batting line-up who hit multiple boundaries in literally every over.
With Pat Cummins turning out to be an efficient leader and finding his groove with the ball, especially with the rest of the bowling line-up having an economy rate beyond 10, SRH are primed to give a tough challenge to Pant and DC, who arrive with the belief to keep their winning run going on return to their original home ground for their second half of IPL 2024.
The two teams have met 23 times in the tournament with DC winning 11 matches and SRH winning 12 games.
DC v SRH head-to-head 23
Delhi Capitals: 11
Sunrisers Hyderabad: 12
DC v SRH match time: The match starts at 7:30 PM IST (2:00 PM GMT) with the toss taking place half an hour before the match i.e., 7:00 PM (1:30 PM GMT)
DC v SRH venue: Arun Jaitley Stadium, New Delhi
Live broadcast of DC v SRH match on television in India: DC v SRH match will be broadcast live via Star Sports Network.
Live stream in India: The live streaming of DC v SRH will be available on JioCinema.
Squads:
Sunrisers Hyderabad: Abhishek Sharma, Travis Head, Heinrich Klaasen(w), Aiden Markram, Abdul Samad, Nitish Reddy, Shahbaz Ahmed, Pat Cummins (c), Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Jaydev Unadkat, T Natarajan, Mayank Markande, Umran Malik, Anmolpreet Singh, Glenn Phillips, Rahul Tripathi, Washington Sundar, Upendra Yadav, Jhatavedh Subramanyan, Sanvir Singh, Vijayakanth Viyaskanth, Fazalhaq Farooqi, Marco Jansen, Akash Maharaj Singh, Mayank Agarwal.
Delhi Capitals: Prithvi Shaw, Jake Fraser-McGurk, Abishek Porel, Shai Hope, Rishabh Pant (wk/c), Sumit Kumar, Tristan Stubbs, Axar Patel, Kuldeep Yadav, Mukesh Kumar, Ishant Sharma, Khaleel Ahmed, Kumar Kushagra, Praveen Dubey, Lalit Yadav, Lizaad Williams, David Warner, Jhye Richardson, Anrich Nortje, Yash Dhull, Mitchell Marsh, Ricky Bhui, Rasikh Dar Salam, Vicky Ostwal, Swastik Chikara.
Will it be DC skipper Rishabh Pant who will have the last laugh at Kotla? Or, will it be Australian Pat Cummins, who will have one more win as a captain?
Well, the Kotla crowd would love to see local boy Pant and home team DC celebrating victory, that is for sure. (With IANS support)
