Delhi Capitals (DC) will square off against the Gujarat Titans (GT) at the Arun Jaitley Stadium in Delhi on Tuesday. The home team comes into this game on the back of a crushing 50-run loss to the Lucknow Super Giants (LSG) in their opening game of season 16 on Saturday (April 1).
DC's bowling attack was taken to the cleaners by Lucknow batters, particularly West Indian opener Kyle Mayers, who struck 73 runs off 38 deliveries. However, Delhi's middle-order failed to step up during the chase with the likes of Mitchell Marsh, Sarfaraz Khan and Rovman Powell being dismissed cheaply. David Warner's half-century came at a strike rate of 116.67 at a time when the team was pursuing a required run rate of over 9.5 runs per over.
On the other hand, Gujarat Titans kicked off their campaign on a positive note by defeating Chennai Super Kings (CSK) by five wickets in Ahmedabad on Friday (March 31). Skipper Hardik Pandya will be pleased in the manner his men pulled the game back in their favour. The Super Kings were cruising at the halfway mark with opener Ruturaj Gaikwad playing a brilliant knock of 92 runs off 50 deliveries. However, they lost momentum in the second half of the innings and were reduced to 178 courtesy a cohesive bowling effort by the Titans.
Also read:
Shubman Gill then hit 63 of 36 deliveries and late cameos from Rahul Tewatia and Rashid Khan helped the defending champions get over the finishing line with relative ease. Delhi and Gujarat come into this game with contrasting form behind them, but the Capitals will be hoping that they can outclass the Titans on their home turf.
Predicted Playing XI
Gujarat Titans: Wriddhiman Saha (WK), Shubman Gill, Sai Sudarshan, Hardik Pandya (C), Vijay Shankar, Rahul Tewatia, Rashid Khan, Mohammed Shami, Joshua Little, Yash Dayal, Alzarri Joseph.
Impact Player: R Sai Kishore
Delhi Capitals: Prithvi Shaw, David Warner (C), Mitchell Marsh, Sarfaraz Khan (WK), Rilee Rossouw, Rovman Powell, Axar Patel, Kuldeep Yadav, Chetan Sakariya, Mukesh Kumar, Khaleel Ahmed.
Impact Player: Aman Khan
Key player to watch out
Rashid Khan (Gujarat Titans)
Rashid dismissed CSK's star English duo of Moeen Ali and Ben Stokes to break the back of their lineup and restrict MS Dhoni's men to a decent total on Friday. He will relish bowling at the slow turning tracks that the Feroz Shah Kotla ground often dishes out. Delhi’s middle-order overseas trio of Marsh, Powell and Rossouw could struggle against the Afghan leggie and the 24-year-old has demonstrated multiple times now that he could be more than handy with the bat lower down the order as well.
Kuldeep Yadav (Delhi Capitals)
The chinaman bowler can maximise the conditions on offer in the national capital by strangling the Gujarat batsmen for runs as they potentially look to take him on in the middle overs. Yadav is an out-and-out wicket-taking option and Warner is smart enough to utilise him appropriately to extract the best possible results out of him. With Axar Patel containing runs from the other end, the Titans are likely to take their chances against Yadav and that presents him a greater opportunity to scalp some crucial dismissals in his spell.
Where to watch?
The match will start at 7.30 pm IST on Tuesday and it will be telecast live on the Star Sports network. Online viewers can tune into the action via the Jio Cinema app.
(Edited by : Jerome Anthony)
