Rajasthan Royals (RR) have played only two matches in more than two weeks. Given that,. the fact that they lost both times, they are currently on the outside looking in when it comes to playoffs places. Sunday could change all that. If Royal Challengers Bengaluru beat Punjab Kings. RR follow that up by beating Delhi Capitals (DC), they will be back in the top four.
The upside of having so much time off is a chance to regroup. Riyan Parag is back batting in the nets after a hamstring niggle ruled him out of RR's last game. He nearly doubled his season tally, making 90 off 50 against DC on May 1. should be looking forward to facing them again in Delhi's excellent batting conditions.
DC's hopes of making the playoffs appear very slim after going through a strange sort of season - scoring their highest IPL score ever only to lose the game, possessing a bowling attack with great variety. often coming undone when it mattered most. Middle-order issues, the initial injury. unavailability of Mitchell Starc and the poor form of Kuldeep Yadav have all combined to overshadow the gains they've made. If Axar Patel's men lose on Sunday, they will be out of the playoffs race.
Delhi Capitals: WLLWL (last five completed matches, most recent first) Rajasthan Royals: LLWLW
Parag hit the nets in the lead-up to this game. There is a decent chance he'll slot right back in the RR XII. DC are likely to trust KL Rahul to carry the top order. for Kuldeep Yadav to find his groove because the options they have for those spots seem limited.
Delhi Capitals (probable): 1 Abishek Porel. 2 KL Rahul (wk), 3 Sahil Parakh, 4 David Miller, 5 Ashutosh Sharma, 6 Axar Patel (capt), 7 Tristan Stubbs, 8 Madhav Tiwari, 9 Kuldeep Yadav, 10 Mitchell Starc, 11 Lungi Ngidi, 12 Mukesh Kumar
Rajasthan Royals (probable): 1 Yashasvi Jaiswal. 2 Vaibhav Sooryavanshi, 3 Dhruv Jurel (wk), 4 Riyan Parag (capt), 5 Donovan Ferreira, 6 Shubham Dubey, 7 Ravindra Jadeja, 8 Jofra Archer, 9 Ravi Bishnoi/Yash Punja, 10 Nandre Burger/Adam Milne, 11 Brijesh Sharma, 12 Tushar Deshpande
In the spotlight: Yashasvi Jaiswal and Tristan Stubbs
Yashasvi Jaiswal has tapered off as the tournament has gone on. In his first four innings, he made 183 runs at an average of 91.50. In his last seven innings, he's made 132 runs at an average of 18.90. Jaiswal and Starc have history from the 2024-25 Border-Gavaskar Trophy and there seems to be no love lost. When they faced each other in the reverse fixture earlier this month, Jaiswal hit a first-ball six. Starc got rid of him before the over was out.
Tristan Stubbs has been one of the slowest starters this season with a strike rate of 111 in his first ten balls. The idea behind batting like this is to get a feel for the conditions and then kick on. But Stubbs' strike rate, even after getting set is not great - 140 after crossing the 20-ball mark. He is better than these numbers suggest.
Sooryavanshi has hit the most sixes in the powerplay this season (30) and overall as well (40). Over 50% of his total runs - 440 - are the result of the ease with. he can clear a cricket ground. And Delhi is a small cricket ground. DC are a dangerous batting team in the death overs. They've scored their runs at a rate of 11.4 per over, which is the second-best in the league. David Miller (strike rate 230) and Ashutosh Sharma (strike rate 219) are key to this. RR do have a way to mitigate this situation with Jofra Archer. who has an excellent record against Miller in all T20 cricket: two dismissals in five innings for 19 runs at a strike rate of 90. A measure of how dangerous Donovan Ferreira can be at the death is. he's been out there in overs 17 to 20 only three times. But that's already enough for him to be the league's highest back-end six-hitter (11) with a balls-per-six ratio of 2.63. Four of Mukesh Kumar's six wickets so far have been of left-hand batters at an average of 24.25. an economy rate of 9.09. DC will likely pair him up against Jaiswal and Sooryavanshi up top. Mukesh against right-hand batters this IPL: average of 108 and economy rate of 11.78.
Batters should enjoy the pitch set to be used for the game. In four of the last five matches played on it, the first innings total has exceeded 180. The one time it didn't was when DC got bowled out for 75 against RCB last month. Also, three of the last four games on this surface have been won by the side batting first. An extremely hot day is on the cards with temperatures hitting a high of 42°C.
"When you play Rajasthan Royals, I think [Sooryavanshi] is the prized wicket. you want to get him out early because you know the damage he can do if he stays at the crease long enough" Delhi Capitals assistant coach Ian Bell gives big ups to RR's 15-year-old opener
Discussion
Sign in to join the thread, react, and share images.