After a disappointing loss at the hands of the Royal Challengers Bangalore, the Kevin Pietersen-led Delhi Daredevils will again gear up to get the IPL campaign back on track when they take on the Kolkata Knight Riders.
After a disappointing loss at the hands of the Royal Challengers Bangalore, the Kevin Pietersen-led Delhi Daredevils will again gear up to get the IPL campaign back on track when they take on the Kolkata Knight Riders. The availability of Kevin Pietersen is still up in the air and it seems Dinesh Karthik will again fill the boots for the Englishman. With Pietersen out of the picture., the Daredevils will again have to rely heavily on their two other overseas stars, J P Duminy and Ross Taylor to deliver the goods. Both batted beautifully in their opening game and revived the team from a tottering 17 for three to 145 for four in 20 overs.
Also, the likes of Mayank Agarwal, Dinesh Karthik, who led the side in the absence of Pietersen, and Manoj Tiwary will need to pull their socks up against Kolkata. In the bowling department, Delhi do have come under the cropper with both Shahbaz Nadeem and Rahul Sharma going for runs in the first game.
The KKR on the other hand will be high on confidence after their spirited win against the 2013 champions, Mumbai Indians in the opener. Old warhorse Jacques Kallis came to the party against the Mumbai side and will look to play another innings.
Skipper Gautam Gambhir will also be looking to bring in some runs with the bat. As far as the bowling department is concerned, West Indies spin wizard Sunil Narine would look to continue is spinning trickery on the opposition batsmen with his guile. His figures of 4/20 against Mumbai was oustanding and one can always expect a similar outing from the Trinidadian.
The margin for error is very less for both the teams as none would like to end on the losing side. Delhi who have had a torrid seasons so far in the IPL, would like to start a new chapter.
Teams (from):
Kolkata Knight Riders: Gautam Gambhir (c), Sunil Narine, Jacques Kallis, Robin Uthappa, Yusuf Pathan, Shakib Al Hasan, Umesh Yadav, Vinay Kumar, Morne Morkel, Piyush Chawla, Manish Pandey, Veer Pratap Singh, Chris Lynn, Andre Russell, SS Mandal, Pat Cummins, Debabrata Das, Suryakumar Yadav, Manvinder Bisla, Ryan ten Doeschate, Kuldeep Yadav.
Delhi Daredevils: Dinesh Karthik, Murali Vijay, Ross Taylor, Quinton De Kock, Mohammed Shami, Jaydev Unadkat, Manoj Tiwary, Rahul Sharma, Mayank Agarwal, Nathan Coulter-Nile, Jean-Paul Duminy, Kedar Jadhav, SIdharth Kaul, Milind Kumar, Shahbaz Nadeem, Jimmy Neesham, Wayne Parnell, HS Sharath, Laxmi Shukla, Rahul Shukla, Jayant Yadav, Saurabh Tiwary.
