NEW DELHI: Unable to negotiate tricky batting tracks or defend big totals on belters, there seems no comfort even on home turf for Delhi Capitals when they take on Kolkata Knight Riders in a must-win IPL game here on Friday.
The eighth-placed KKR need to win all five of their remaining matches to leapfrog to 17 points in order to remain relevant. In this backdrop, what becomes important is the surface on which DC will play the game. It is understood that to counter the threat of spin twins Sunil Narine and Varun Chakravarthy, DC is likely to opt for a batting belter and will be playing on Pitch No.6, the track on which they scored 264 but failed to defend against Punjab Kings.
The reason for picking such a track is lack of faith in the batting line-up which was reduced to 9 for 6 on a slightly seaming surface against the Royal Challengers Bengaluru. On a slowish surface where the ball gripped, the DC batters failed to come to terms with Rashid Khan of Gujarat Titans, and Akeal Hosein and Noor Ahmed of the Chennai Super Kings.
Sunil (Economy Rate of 6.80) and Varun (Economy Rate 8.88) can make life miserable for the likes of Pathum Nissanka, Sameer Rizvi, and Karun Nair to name a few. Making things worse for Delhi is premier spinner Kuldeep Yadav (10 matches, 7 wickets at ER 10.36), who is going through his worst IPL season right now.
In such a situation, the only escape route for a distinctly mediocre team with no apparent 'Plan B' is to play on a flat deck. It would give the non-performing home batters a chance to pile up a big score. Later, the team would expect that Mitchell Starc and Lungi Ngidi, who suffered a concussion during the game against Punjab, would will seal the deal with the ball.
The only advantage DC will have is that KKR's pain point is also its top order performance. The two main batters at the top, skipper Ajinkya Rahane (205 runs at Strike Rate 131.42) and Angkrish Raghuvanshi (268 runs at 137.43) haven't been able to grab the initiative in most of the games.
Save Rinku Singh (245 runs at 145.39), who has done the heavy lifting in KKR wins, the other batters have mostly struggled. If KKR are still in with a chance to progress, it is because of Narine and Varun who have got 9 and 10 wickets respectively. For DC, the problems have been way too many. KL Rahul, with his best ever IPL strike rate of 180 plus in an aggregate of 445 runs, has put in an effort. But his his best isn't enough given that the likes of Abhishek Sharma, and Vaibhav Sooryavanshi are striking at way above 200.
The team management's insistence on continuing with Pathum Nissanka (228 in nine games) has been baffling. Playing Karun Nair, who has been in horrible touch even in the nets, defied logic. Nitish Rana, despite all his experience, can't seem to play the short ball.
The Indian pacers like Mukesh Kumar, T Natarajan and "Baramullah's Dale Steyn" Auqib Nabi Dar have had economy rates of 11, 11.18 and 13.42 respectively. None of the DC bowlers' wicket tally has touched double figures with skipper Axar Patel's nine scalps at an economy rate of 8.25 being the best.
Delhi Capitals: Axar Patel (captain), KL Rahul (wk), Pathum Nissanka, Sameer Rizvi, Karun Nair, Nitish Rana, Ashutosh Sharma, Abhishek Porel (wk), Kuldeep Yadav, Vipraj Nigam, Sahil Parakh, Mitchell Starc, Lungi Ngidi, Kyle Jamieson, David Miller, Tristan Stubbs, Mukesh Kumar, T Natarajan, Auqib Nabi Dar, Rehan Ahmed, Tripurana Vijay, Dushmantha Chameera, Madhav Tiwari, Ajay Mandal, Prithvi Shaw.
Kolkata Knight Riders: Ajinkya Rahane (captain), Angkrish Raghuvanshi (wk), Tim Seifert (wk), Finn Allen, Rovman Powell, Cameron Green, Rinku Singh, Varun Chakravarthy, Sunil Narine, Kartik Tyagi, Vaibhav Arora, Navdeep Saini, Tejasvi Dahiya (wk), Ramandeep Singh, Sarthak Ranjan, Rahul Tripathi, Prashant Solanki, Matheesha Pathirana, Daksh Kamra, Rachin Ravindra, Anukul Roy, Saurabh Dubey, Umran Malik, Manish Pandey.