Preview: DD vs RCB Match 30 IPL 4 2011

Delhi Daredevils and Royal Challengers Bangalore face each in Delhi home. This venue witnessed a classic of a last match where the home team DD faced KXIP and triumphed. RCB didn’t perform any less in their last game. Gayle powered RCB clinched a game against KKR with confidence.

Both these teams something in common which was both were down on loosing streak. If DD were down with just 1 win, RCB were not too less with one win and 1 abandoned match.They came back strong and won their respective matches against tough opponents and that too with big margins. If RCB was inspired by Gayle to a 9 wicket win by a blistering knock of 102 (52), Delhi Daredevils were resurrected strongly by Virender Sehwag 77(38) and David Warner 77 (45).

This rightly make s us await for this magnificent encounter filled with match winners. The other day it was Gayle for RCB while Warner and Sehwag combined effort for DD. But this isn’t all !! RCB has one more match winner who is yet to fire in Sri Lankan captain Dilshan. Now that he is set leave IPL early, he would want fire against his Ex-team as Gayle did against his.

Pitch: A usual low slow Kotla pitch behaved too differently and we saw a marathon of 433 runs score in the previous game. Though we would witness some early seam movement like ball should continue to come on to the bat nicely. Gayle must be really looking foreword to the six hitting entertainment which he promised he will continue to in post match chat. It will be cake-walk for big west-indian clearing the small boundary. So will it be for double trouble David-Warner. Further Dil-scope will only get easier in such conditions.

Delhi Darevils: DD’s campaign however has been far from impressive looking at the overall performance. In spite of a big win they are 9th in points table with NRR almost equaling DC. Too much dependence of openers for a good start has proved fatal. With a good start Delhi has hitters like Naman Ojha and Venu Rao to finish or take it forward. A Finch needs to find his form for strengthening the middle order. Sunny Singh is looking out of sorts. It l be curious if they will come up with a replacement. But with the inspiration of win on a strong team, they should come together as team.

Bowling Department which hasn’t been impressive other than Morne Morkel find some hope in name of James Hopes in last match vs Kings XI. This medium pacer chipped in with wickets at crucial time.Irfan Pathan if not with the bat hasn’t at least delivered with the ball till last match. In spite of coach’s heavy words told before the last match that he would comeback strong, Pathan wasn’t exceptional in last match. Though he got the initial important wicket of Valthay, he was hit out later in the match in a match that was six hitting contest. Varun Aaron who was hyped before his debut took crucial wickets only after getting hit out of the park quite much. His spell invokes curiosity we look at the consistency of line and length in this young player. The fact that he is currently the only Indian bowler who can bowl above speeds of 150 kmph adds to it.

Bangalore Royal Challengers: RCB who started as one of favorites in this edition could not get along after the initial win. Their batting line-up which already looks very strong on paper has been revamped strongly by inclusion of Gayle. Dilshan who hasn’t exploded yet played an supportive innings of 38 (31) last game. It is the consistency which hold’s the key as all RCB batsman look to be in form. They haven’t yet all together performed as either Devilries or Kohli or Gayle took main charge individually in different matches. This solid batting line has the depth and is capable of making the highest ever total in IPL. Saurabh Tiwary off course needs to make big contribution yet as he consistently used to do it for Mumbai

Bowling has off course been a weak link in RCB. Though much power Gayle added strength to batting which happened only at the expense of a Brilliant Ex-delhi injured bowler Dirk Nannes. With Zaheer khan getting hit over 50 runs in couple of matches they are in dire need of good pacer. Zaheer who is a fighter would look to comeback strongly and find his world cup form. Domestic bowlers has been giving their decent support for team but it is on Daniel Vettori bowling attack has been mostly relying on. Economical he will be but It will be important so has to how successful he will be in talking wickets of his Ex-dehi explosive batsman.

 

Bangalore team which has always looked strong on paper if plays to the full potential will be tough to handle for Delhi Daredevils. On the other hand Delhi also has big match winner who on their day can be just too hot handle. My pick will be Dilshan and Irfan Pathan today. Both of these players’s performances will make the difference as I expect.

Its 60-40 for RCB –DD. For you ?

RCB (Playing XI):D Vettori(C), C Gayle, T Dilshan, V Kohli, AB de Villiers, S Tiwary, C Pujara, Z Khan, S Aravind, S M Jamaluddin, A Mithun

DD (Playing XI):V Sehwag(C), D Warner, N Ojha, V Rao, Y Nagar, J Hopes, I Pathan, M Wade, U Yadav, M Morkel, A Dinda

RCB have 6 Ex Delhi Players !! Seriously teams exchanged

Delhi Daredevils 6 for no loss after 1 over (David Warner 0*, Virender Sehwag 5*)

Delhi Daredevils 16-0 after 2 overs (David Warner 0*, Virender Sehwag 15*)

Delhi Daredevils 42 for 1 after 6 overs (Virender Sehwag 24*, James Hopes 8*). Last Wkt : D Warner b Zaheer 7(11)

OUT!!! RUN OUT ! Sehwag departs ! Run out (Mithun) on 25. Big wicket for RCB ! DD 2 wickets down

Match review: DD vs KXIP

23 April

Tagline: OId is Gold!!!  “Purana qila” breaks the “Naya Deewar” records

 

BiggestSixes in IPL4 happened in DD vs KXIP Match David Hussey 106m Shaun Marsh 105m  Venugopal Rao 97m	Score: Delhi batted first Delhi Daredevils 231/4 Kings Xi Punjab 202/6
	3 Awesome innings in DD vs KXIP Sehwag scored 77 (35) Warner scored 77 (48) Marsh scored 95 (42)

These were just some staggering numbers of the Match. But this match was beyond all that. It was initially about fighting spirit of Delhi Daredevils who were rock down the table. And then later in match it was the fighting spirit of Shaun Marsh and Gilchrist of Kings XI Punjab against the seemingly impossible total.

Initially Delhi started great guns. Sehwag and Warner recreated the opening magic and at one point of time 91 of 8 overs without a wicket. They went on to make 116 in 10 overs. Finally Sehwag lost his wicket at 146 to Hussey and Warner 2 overs later lost it to Kumar. Damage was already done by then as Delhi were 161 already. Nagar and Finch came but fell fast in going with the momentum. Then Venu and Ojha finished it up brilliantly.

Sehwag's 77(35) had 8 fours and 4 sixes while Warner 77(48) 11 boundaries and four sixes. Venugopal Rao 28* (15) and Naman Ojha 19* (8) played  big shots in the end overs to ramp up the already high run-rate.

Harris, Praveen or no bowler could do the trick against this batting line up which just clicked when they most wanted against the strongest opponent to gain them the confidence that they can beat anyone. I read articles yesterday on poor contribution of Sehwag in T20 overall and Delhi Daredevils specifically. All these question were just answered with one master stroke of innings.

Chasing the Almost impossible 231 Kings started decently. 3 overs 25 but then an good wicket maiden by Irfan Pathan Got the most explosive Paul Velathi as he looked to hit it out. He was caught by Nagar on a lofted shot. On the other end Gilchrist was facing problems with Morkel as they played him silently. In the 6 th over run-rate was just 6.2 because of Morney Morkel’s brilliance and Paul’s wicket.

Then Gilchrist faced most of the balls hitting trade-mark yet careful shots till then to make 45. When ever they got a chance Marsh and Gilchrist hit one bounce fours and sixes. They went on to make 95 in 10 overs. Only then Giichrist misgauged a angled ball to lose his valuable wicket to young Varun Aaron. Though Varun went for runs in his initial over he came back strongly to claim Adam’s wicket.  (He is ex-ICL players with4 wickets in 8 matches).

If one has lost hope on Kings as David Hussey who came after then hadn’t played too many balls, he proved all of them wrong. In order to keep up the asking rate of over 12 rpo he hit Agarkar and Aaron out James Hopes of the park for biggest six of 106 m. The next bal he tried something similar but couldn’t middle the ball and it was catch neat the boundary. Marsh Still didn't lose hope or let anyone loose hope. Lofted cover drivers, mindless shots on short balls and  of length balls everything went out of the park or to the boundaries.

Marsh saw Dinesh Karthik get out on the other end for irresponsible shot played in haste of making runs. Sehwag caught it perfectly. He did not give even yet. He hit competing 6 in length just one meter lower in length than his fellow Hussey, 105m. Abhishek Nayar on the other end got a life when a loften shot when the ball landed between players. Pressure build on as he couldn’t do much later in Agarkar’s over which was the golden chance. This brough the equation to 56 in 3 overs. Morkel who one boundary in the effort of taking the aeriel root went for lofted shot again. Third one in this innings caught again by Sehwag himself. In the end Nayar got Kings past 200 with his 18 in 13 balls.

I wonder what happened to slight green layer on the pitch that was supposed to help seamers. May be it just got churned away by the burning desire of Sehwag and Warner to win it for their team. Neither was  Marsh effected by it in an innings which I would rate one of the best in the chases. 95(42) when wickets were falling on the other end definitely deserved a century. He like his other team mates fell for the increasing run-rate which went beyond them. James Hopes and Morkel bowled decently on Delhi Side and that made the difference between the winnings and loosing side.

Am definitely watching all Kings XI and Delhi Daredevils matches from now. For it was just a treat watching the three gem of an innings.

 

Read here the views of match in preview

Delhi Daredevils-DD

Team Position: 10th with 2 points in 5 matches in IPL 4

Next Match: Delhi Daredevils vs Kings XI Punjab (23 April, 8:00 pm)

Previous Match: Delhi Daredevils vs Deccan Chargers (Loss)

Best level achieved by Franchise: Table topper and Semi-finalist in IPL ‘09, Semi-finalist ‘08

 

Team

Ashok Dinda	Ajit Agarkar,	David Warner
Umesh Yadav	Naman Ojha	James Hopes
Venugopal Rao	Irfan Pathan	Morne Morkel
Aavishkar Salvi,	Virender Sehwag (c)	Aaron Finch
Prashant Naik	S Sriram	Mathew Wade
Rajesh Pawar,	Tejashwi Yadav	Roloef van der Merwe
Robin Bist	Unmukt Chand	Andrew McDonald
Shahbaz Nadeem	Varun Aaron	Travis Birt
Vikash Mishra	Yogesh Nagar	Collin Ingram
Vivek Yadav		Robert Frylinck