DC made several sensible changes to their lineup and immediately looked much better. They brought in Prithvi Shaw to open with David Warner, who made an immediate impact. Ishant Sharma also proved his worth again and added quality to the bowling lineup. The performance of Shaw, Marsh, and Pant meant that the Delhi Capitals finally managed to post a competitive score. Are all their batting problems solved? No, not quite. It’s easy to see how just one or two early wickets can leave Delhi in trouble. However, there is hope that the departures of Marsh and Stoinis have not yet been felt. With Axar Patel and Abhishek Porel in the DC lineup, there is indeed something to look forward to. For DC’s batting to go well, many things need to go right, but it looks more promising than before. DC’s bowling lineup against KKR was very impressive. Khalil Ahmed was an outstanding bowler and will be someone everyone will rely on early in the game against Salt and Narine. Anrich Nortje brings genuine pace, which will again be a weapon against Russell, while Axar Patel and Kuldeep Yadav will try to win in the middle overs. Bowling is the real strength of the Delhi Capitals, and here they can gain the upper hand in this competition.
The Kolkata Knight Riders team crushed their opponents in Bangalore. Sunil Narine is incredibly difficult to stop when he gets going, and in the previous match, he did it impressively. Phil Salt has also proven to be a very smart acquisition for KKR with his brilliant performance at the top of the order. Salt was released by DC, and perhaps he has something to prove! Venkatesh Iyer, Shreyas Iyer, Rinku Singh, and Andre Russell give KKR a huge advantage when it comes to batting depth. They are filled with potential match-winners throughout their batting order and can afford to continue attacking even if they lose wickets. Looking at the conditions we saw in Visakhapatnam in the previous match, we like that Venkatesh Iyer and Shreyas Iyer made an impact in this match. The bowling attack for KKR is not the strongest, but they know how to make the most efficient use of their resources. They have Sunil Narine and Varun Chakravarthy as spinners, possibly Anukul Roy – a wicket seems a bit dry, and Mitchell Starc – as the spearhead of the attack. At present, Starc has conceded 100 runs in 8 overs bowled during IPL 2024! Harshith Rana and Andre Russell have compensated for the weakness. The bowling lineup doesn’t seem the strongest at the moment, but it can be quite decent when the time comes.
