DELHI CAPITALS : The Capitals continued their rich way of form which they had in the first phase of this tournament as they continue to beat teams convincingly like they did against the Royals last Saturday. It was their top order which heavily contributed in most of their victories as Dhawan and Shaw scored bulk of the runs, but this time with both of them failing, their middle order gave them a fighting total which proved to be more than enough. Their bowlers were exceptional as no batter except Samson got going against them. Each and every player from this Delhi playing XI is in fine form in the second phase.
KOLKATA KNIGHT RIDERS : The Knight Riders did almost everything right in the game against the Super Kings but failed to win key moments. Their middle order was tested for the first time since the restart of the tournament and it did crumble but thanks to DK's priceless cameo which boosted them to a par score. They failed to control the opposition in the power play but pulled things back in the middle overs but it was the 19th over which decided the game where Jadeja showed his class once again. The decision to go with Prasidh Krishna in the penultimate over, cost them the game. It's understandable that Morgan wanted his best bowler ( Narine ) for the final over but things would’ve been different if Prasidh Krishna kept 8 to 10 runs in the bank for the final over. Baring all this, Narine almost did a Karthik Tyagi to make a game out of it and they would definitely want to forget what happened earlier this year against the same opponent where Prithvi Shaw won the game for DC in the first over of the chase by smashing 6 boundaries in 6 balls of Shivam Mavi .
VENUE & PITCH : SHARJAH CRICKET STADIUM.
Historically, chasing has been a good decision at this venue, but in the two games played so far in this tournament, we’ve seen the ball gripping and turning for the spinners and the slower deliveries being more effective in the second innings. So batting first will not be a bad decision either . With both the teams having some crafty spinners ( Ashwin , Narine and Varun ) we might witness some quality spin bowling . And Varun Chakravarthy also registered the only 5-fer of the last year’s IPL against this team when they met last time in UAE and this is not the same Sharjah wicket we got last year where the runs were flowing quickly. Keeping in mind that this is the first day game in this tournament, we might be in for some surprises.
HEAD-TO-HEAD : The Knight Riders are dominating the head to head record by winning 21 out of the 35 encounters but ever since the Delhi franchise changed their name from Daredevils to Capitals, they’ve won 4 out of 5 in which one game was decided in the super over .
POINTS TABLE : In the last 10-15 games , the Super Kings and the Capitals are ruling the top 2 spots as they’re over taking each other in that No.1 positing game by game. So it's quite obvious that these two might end up as table toppers. From the Knight Riders point of view even though they lost their previous game, Bangalore’s massive win over Mumbai would’ve given them a bit more breathing space because of their NRR which is the best amongst all teams with 8 points .
STATS & FACTS :
• The last time when KKR and DC faced off in Sharjah, DC posted a mammoth 228 and defended successfully .
• KKR's Dinesh Karthik needs just 28 runs to complete 4000 runs in his IPL career .
• DK will become the 3rd keeper Batsman to score 4000 IPL runs after MS Dhoni and Robin Uthappa.
CHANGES & CONCERNS :
CAPITALS : The Capitals decided to go with just 3 foreign players in their previous game, as many expected Steve Smith would get a game by replacing the injured Stoinis. Surprisingly DC opted for an Indian player in Lalit Yadav but he batted with a strike rate of 93 as he faced 15 deliveries and he didn’t bowl either but in the reverse fixture earlier this year, Lalit bowled a brilliant spell where he dismissed both Morgan and Narine for ducks in consecutive deliveries. In fact, regarding the slow and turning nature of the Sharjah wicket and with the amount of left handers in the KKR line up ( 4 ) , Lalit would not be a bad option. They could also go with the experience of Steve Smith considering KKR's better bowling line up compared to RR's and Smith's ability to play spin might be handy.
The only concern for DC would be Ashwin’s form as he’s scalped only 2 wickets to his name in the 7 innings that he’s bowled so far which is way below his pedigree and they also want him to come good considering the T20 World Cup in a month's time at these same venues. The exceptional performance of Axar Patel has compensated for Ashwin's poor show.
KNIGHT RIDERS : The injury that Russell picked up after bowling 3 overs looked a bit dangerous. That was the main reason why the 19th over was given to Prasidh Krishna and who knows a better over from Russell could've changed the result . If Russell is unavailable, they could go with Shakib who is another experienced spinner.
Captain Morgan's form is quite a big concern for them as he struggled to score at a good pace against Chennai which tilted the momentum towards the Super Kings during the middle overs . So he would definitely want to prove his worth as a batsman in this team.
PROBABLE PLAYING XI :
DC : S Dhawan , P Shaw , S Iyer , R Pant( c & wk )S Hetmeyer , L Yadav / S Smith , A Patel , R Ashwin , K Rabada , A Nortje , A Khan .
KKR : S Gill , V Iyer , R Tripathi , E Morgan , N Rana , A Russell / S Al Hasan , D Karthik , S Narine , L Ferguson , P Krishna , V Chakravarthi .
DREAM 11 FANTASY TEAM
