Defending champion Gujarat Titans (GT) and hosts Delhi Capitals face each other in their second IPL league fixture here on Tuesday after having tasted a massive victory and demoralising defeat respectively in their opening fixtures of the tournament.
Delhi Capitals looked clueless in all departments in their opening fixture against Lucknow Super Giants (LSG) while GT was impressive in their win over Chennai Super Kings.
The Delhi Capitals will now make all out efforts to find form on Tuesday at the Arun Jaitley Stadium tomorrow evening . The team will be playing at their home ground for the first time in four years while GT their first match outside Ahmedabad.
Despite Kane Williamson being ruled out of the tournament after a serious knee injury, the defending champions start favourite against Delhi Capitals especially in bowling department which is spearheaded by Mark Wood.
Though Delhi Capitals has exciting batting lineup at least on the paper and also have top heavy think tank and in tomorrow’s match they have a chance to show that the 50-run thrashing they received in the opening match was just an aberration.
Though South African pacer Anrich Nortje has arrived but will he be inducted in the playing eleven is yet not confirmed. Speaking ahead of the game the DC Director of Cricket Sourav Ganguly said, “Anrich Nortje is here, but we haven’t picked the team yet. Khaleel and Mukesh bowled well against Lucknow. Sakariya bowled well in his first two overs but went for a few runs in his last two, which can happen in T20 cricket. We have the required attack, hopefully, we’ll be fine against Gujarat.”
Asked if Vice-Captain Axar Patel will be sent up the order in the next match, Ganguly said, “We have discussed about Axar’s batting position and hopefully, he will bat higher in the order. He has batted exceptionally well for India in the recent past. He got a lot of runs against Australia in the Test series on difficult wickets and hopefully, he can score runs for us.”
Much will depend how skipper David Warner, Prithvi Shaw and Sarfaraz Khan handle in-form pacer Mark Wood. They looked tentative while facing LSG pacers and compared to that GT attack both pace and spin is much more effective and incisive.
If Anrich Nortje is included than DC selectors will have to select two from these three foreign players -Rilee Rossouw, Mitchell Marsh, Rovman Powell,-
With David Miller’s arrival GT bowling department looks more formidable which also includes. Mohammed Shami, Hardik Pandya Alzarri Joseph, and ever consistent Rashid Khan it is going to be tough for DC batsmen.
The Delhi Capitals batters found it difficult to play against Mark Wood’s pace in their last match, but Ganguly expressed that sometimes batters can have an off day, “Our batters have scored against fast bowling in the past. It’s just that they got out against Lucknow Super Giants and sometimes that happens in sport. You have to give credit to Mark Wood for the way he bowled in the last game.”