Two struggling teams in the bottom of the IPL standings – Delhi Capitals and Kolkata Knight Riders – will look to make a late charge towards the playoffs and one common note that can hang in both of the team’s dressing rooms right now is, “It’s now or never”.
DC will host the three-time champions at Arun Jaitley Stadium, Delhi on Friday. Delhi has managed a solitary win on their home ground out of the five games they have played and head coach Hemang Badani said they have no control over the surfaces as BCCI is taking care of the pitches.
DC could only manage 155-7 on a tricky pitch against Chennai Super Kings in their last game at the nation’s capital and there is no doubt that they must come up with an improved batting performance against KKR.
On the other hand, KKR have found a new leash of life after getting off to a worse possible start in the first half of the season. Ajinkya Rahane’s team has won their last three games on the trot and have kept themselves floating in the tournament.
They were able to stun a high-flying SRH in their last game after their spin duo of Varun Chakravarthy and Sunil Narine bagged five wickets collectively. Kartik Tyagi has also impressed one and all with his performances in the ongoing season.
Head to Head: Matches: 35, Won by KKR: 19, Won by DC: 15, No result: 1.
Delhi Capitals Squad: KL Rahul(w), Pathum Nissanka, Nitish Rana, Sameer Rizvi, Tristan Stubbs, Axar Patel(c), Ashutosh Sharma, Kyle Jamieson, Mitchell Starc, Kuldeep Yadav, T Natarajan, David Miller, Karun Nair, Dushmantha Chameera, Lungi Ngidi, Mukesh Kumar, Ajay Jadav Mandal, Prithvi Shaw, Auqib Nabi Dar, Rehan Ahmed, Tripurana Vijay, Abishek Porel, Sahil Parakh, Vipraj Nigam, Madhav Tiwari
Sunrisers Hyderabad Squad: Travis Head, Abhishek Sharma, Ishan Kishan(w/c), Heinrich Klaasen, Nitish Kumar Reddy, Salil Arora, Aniket Verma, Harsh Dubey, Harshal Patel, David Payne, Jaydev Unadkat, Eshan Malinga, Shivang Kumar, Liam Livingstone, Smaran Ravichandran, Sakib Hussain, Shivam Mavi, Zeeshan Ansari, Kamindu Mendis, Brydon Carse, Praful Hinge, Krains Fuletra, Onkar Tarmale, Amit Kumar
