A desperate Delhi Daredevils will have to learn from the mistakes made in the previous game against table-toppers Sunrisers Hyderabad when the two sides with contrasting campaigns meet in a re-match of the Indian Premier League in Delhi on Thursday.
Languishing at the bottom of the table with three wins from 10 games, the Shreyas Iyer-led team will have to win to have any chance of progressing further in the tournament.
They have looked a better unit ever since Iyer took over the captaincy from Gautam Gambhir but small mistakes at key moments have proved fatal for them.
In the last match between the two, on Saturday, Delhi put up a challenging 163 but were unable to defend 28 runs off the last two overs. In fact, they could have won rather easily if they held on to the catches of Sunrisers opener Alex Hales and Yusuf Pathan, who eventually got his team over the line with a 12-ball 27.
Iyer admits that the same mistakes cannot be repeated against a strong Sunrisers, arguably the best bowling side in the tournament.
However, the big positive for Delhi is the form of captain Iyer and opener Shaw. The Feroz Shah Kotla has proved to be a high-scoring venue and both the in-form batsmen are expected to deliver in the do-or-die affair.
Iyer and Shaw’s confidence must be a notch higher too, having made the India and India A squads respectively for the UK series. Besides being named India A captain, Iyer was also picked in the India ODI squad.
Among the challenges for Delhi is the disappointment that Glenn Maxwell has been and it remains to be seen if he gets another opportunity. The Ricky Ponting-coached side played only one specialist spinner in Amit Mishra at Hyderabad and he did a much much better job than the pacers, which could prompt them to bring in another spinner alongside Mishra.
Sunrisers, on the other hand, have most things going for them. The bowling is already lethal and can defend any total, as it has shown time and again this season. But the batting has also begun to click for the team.
Hales has performed at the top in the limited chances he has got and now the team would be hoping that star player, Shikhar Dhawan, is back to his best. Dhawan has had a quiet tournament after scores of 78 and 45 in the first two games.
Head-to-Head
Matches – 11
Sunrisers Hyderabad – 7
Delhi Daredevils – 4
Stats and Trivia
- Boult has more wickets than the Daredevils’ second and third highest wicket-takers combined
- In what shouldn’t be a surprise, SRH have the best death bowling economy rate in this year’s IPL, conceding at 7.50 runs per over between overs 16 and 20. The next best is Mumbai Indians, significantly ahead at close to 9.5 runs per over.
- Despite their struggles this year, DD are the only side apart from CSK to have two batsmen in the top 10 run-getters so far. Captain Shreyas Iyer and Rishabh Pant have contributed close to 750 runs. CSK have three players in the top 10.
Quote
“No secret on why we’re doing well. We’ve adapted to a variety of surfaces. There are not many league games left, and we want to still see signs of improvement. Not perfect, but want to keep at it.”
– Sunrisers Hyderabad captain Kane Williamson on his team’s good run
“It is very disappointing, to be honest. See, catches win matches, we’ve been practicing on our fielding, but drops happen when the pressure is high. We didn’t give up till the end”
– Shreyas Iyer on Delhi Dardevils’s seven-wicket loss to Hyderabad after being in a good position
Squads
Sunrisers Hyderabad: Kane Williamson (C ), Shikhar Dhawan, Manish Pandey, Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Wriddhiman Saha, Siddharth Kaul, Deepak Hooda, Khaleel Ahmed, Sandeep Sharma, Yusuf Pathan, Shreevats Goswami, Ricky Bhui, Basil Thampi, T Natarajan, Sachin Baby, Bipul Sharma, Mehdi Hasan, Tanmay Agarwal, Alex Hales, Carlos Brathwaite, Rashid Khan, Shakib Al Hasan, Mohammad Nabi and Chris Jordan.
Delhi Daredevils: Shreyas Iyer (C), Rishabh Pant, Glenn Maxwell, Gautam Gambhir, Jason Roy, Colin Munro, Mohammed Shami, Amit Mishra, Prithvi Shaw, Rahul Tewatia, Vijay Shankar, Harshal Patel, Avesh Khan, Shahbaz Nadeem, Daniel Christian, Jayant Yadav, Gurkeerat Singh Mann, Trent Boult, Manjot Kalra, Abhishek Sharma, Sandeep Lamichhane, Naman Ojha, Sayan Ghosh, Liam Plunkett, Junior Dala.
With inputs from PTI
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