Mumbai Indians (MI) will square off against the Delhi Capitals (DC) at the Arun Jaitley Stadium in New Delhi on Tuesday. Both teams are yet to secure their first victory of the season with Mumbai losing twice and Delhi failing to cross over the finishing line three games in a row now. The upcoming contest will finally allow both the sides to break the deadlock and open their points tally at the expense of the opposing side.
Delhi have looked very out of sorts so far with their batting failing to gather any steam in the absence of Rishabh Pant. David Warner has been amongst the runs but with only a strike rate of 117.03 so far. Prithvi Shaw has struggled to get going whereas the Capitals’ experiments with Sarfaraz Khan and Manish Pandey haven’t worked out so far.
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Their tendency to shield Caribbean big-hitter Rovman Powell pushes him down the order and Rilee Rossouw has not translated his success from other competitions in the Indian Premier League (IPL) so far. There are far too many under-performing stars in that Delhi unit and hence they need to overhaul their batting template rather than chop and change players in the XI.
On the other hand, Mumbai are facing a similar dilemma with their top-order comprising Rohit Sharma, Ishan Kishan and Cameron Green having been unable to score the big runs until now. Even Mumbai’s bowling is lacking bite without Jasprit Bumrah and Jofra Archer and they simply do not have quality spinners to exploit the slow turners that they will be offered in tracks like the Feroz Shah Kotla and other similar grounds.
Predicted Playing XI
Delhi Capitals: Prithvi Shaw, David Warner (c), Manish Pandey, Rilee Rossouw, Lalit Yadav, Axar Patel, Rovman Powell, Abhishek Porel (wk), Kuldeep Yadav, Mukesh Kumar, Anrich Nortje.
Impact Player: Khaleel Ahmed/Chetan Sakariya
Mumbai Indians: Rohit Sharma (c), Ishan Kishan (wk), Cameron Green, Suryakumar Yadav, Tilak Varma, Tim David, Hrithik Shokeen, Kumar Kartikeya, Riley Meredith, Piyush Chawla, Jason Berendorff.
Impact Player: Arshad Khan
Key Player To Watch
Prithvi Shaw (Delhi Capitals)
Rank: 5 | Player: Prithvi Shaw | Team: Sunrisers Hyderabad | Matches: 5 | Runs: 179 | Strike Rate: 147.93 (Image: AP Photo)
Delhi need an injection of power and charisma at the top of the order and Prithvi Shaw can provide exactly that if he can get in the groove. He has looked very out of sorts so far but a feeble Mumbai bowling unit could be the perfect opposition for him to regain some of his batting touch. Warner hasn’t been timing the ball that well yet and a possible blitzkrieg from Shaw at the top could provide the Australian opener just that little bit of cushion to get some positive momentum under his belt.
Rohit Sharma (Mumbai Indians)
Mumbai Indians captain Rohit Sharma (Image: IPL/BCCI)
The Mumbai skipper admitted after the game against Chennai that the senior players in the team need to step up, starting with him. Rohit showed some good intent in his brief stay on the crease at Wankhede on Sunday. He was undone by a peace of a delivery by Tushar Deshpande but the captain showed some good touch by charging down the track a couple of times. He should try and take that intent into the game against Delhi and possibly see if he can convert this knock into a big score.
Pitch Report
The average first innings batting score at the Arun Jaitley Stadium in 13 games is merely 139, which suggests that bowlers might dominate this contest on Tuesday.
Where to Watch?
The match will commence at 7:30 pm on Tuesday and television viewers can tune into action on the Star Sports network. Digital users can bounce to the JioCinema application to catch the game at the same time.
(Edited by : Prakhar Sachdeo)
