Bottom dwellers Delhi and Bangalore look for change in fortunes

Having become the first team to be officially knocked out of the tournament, the Delhi Daredevils (DD) will be looking for some company as they take on the Royal Challengers Bangalore (RCB) who would also be on the same boat provided DD manage to beat them.

Both teams were handed out losses in their previous games by the same opposition – the Sunrisers Hyderabad. While RCB struggled to chase down 147, DD failed to defend 188. The contrasting nature of defeats not only speaks about the shortcomings of these two teams but also speaks volumes about the table toppers Hyderabad.

To be fair to Delhi, they were lucky to get to 187 in their last game thanks to an absolute gem of an innings from Rishabh Pant. There was a method to his madness throughout the innings and while the other batsmen failed, he almost took his team to victory single handedly. There is no doubt about the fact that he is the find of this year’s IPL. The manner in which he treated India’s best death bowler in Bhuvneshwar Kumar spoke volumes about his application and thought processes.

For Bangalore the same story continued as an improvement in bowling performances has been let down by batting failures. With four games to go, they still haven’t managed to get all three departments going right for them. One can blindly say that the failures of AB de Villiers and Virat Kohli will mean another RCB loss. As they continue to wait for others to step up so does their wait to get hold of the silverware.

DD failed to defend 187 in their last game partly due to the dew which came onto the field at the Kotla. Keeping that factor in mind, both teams might want to win the toss and chase. While batting form may not be on RCBs side, they will only need someone to be half as good as a Rishabh Pant to keep their hopes alive in the tournament.

Probable XI’s

With nothing left to lose, Delhi might want to give a chance to Junior Dala and Jayant Yadav in place of Trent Boult and Shahbaz Nadeem.

Delhi Daredevils – Prithvi Shaw, Jason Roy, Shreyas Iyer (c), Rishabh Pant (wk), Vijay Shankar, Harshal Patel, Liam Plunkett, Amit Mishra, Shahbaz Nadeem/Jayant Yadav, Trent Boult/Junior Dala

RCB might go in with an unchanged eleven.

Royal Challengers Bangalore – Manan Vohra, Parthiv Patel (wk), Virat Kohli (c), AB de Villiers, Moeen Ali, Mandeep Singh, Colin de Grandhomme, Tim Southee, Umesh Yadav, Mohammed Siraj, Yuzvendra Chahal

Trivia

• Rishabh Pant’s 128 not out was the 50^th IPL century, the highest score by an Indian in IPL and in T20 cricket. He also became the second-youngest centurion in the IPL
• Pant’s 128 not out in the last game saw him scoring 68.45 percent of his team’s total runs. This is the second best after Brendon McCullum had scored 71.17 percent of his team’s runs during his knock of 158 not out in the inaugural match of the IPL back in 2008

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