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IPL-2024: Delhi Capitals To Take On Lucknow Super Giants In Delhi

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In IPL Cricket, Delhi Capital will lock horns with Lucknow Super Gaints at Arun Jaitley Stadium in New Delhi today. Kolkata Knight Riders qualified for play-off Yesterday while Gujarat Titans were knocked out after rain forced their match to be abandoned without a ball bowled at Narendra Modi Stadium in Ahmedabad. The two teams took one point each, confirming a top-two finish for table-toppers Kolkata, who remain the only side to have already qualified for the next stage. 

DC Vs LSG…

Their IPL math is at a stage where just a win won’t suffice but, before turning to prayers, both Delhi Capitals and Lucknow Super Giants would be eager to get that ‘W’ against their name to fuel their dimming playoffs hopes.

A fumble towards the business end has left both DC and LSG at 12 points ahead of their clash in Delhi on Tuesday, although the visitors have an extra game in hand. Even then, two wins will only take LSG to 16 points from where they will have to hope for both CSK and SRH to drop all their remaining games. Likewise for DC, two losses in last three games have left them precariously placed and with an outlandish scenario to qualify – not only do they have to win big against LSG, DC are also hoping for SRH go down by significant margins to stay ahead on NRR in case of a 14-point tie. A narrow win for DC will almost certainly knock both them and LSG out of the race.

Delhi have only themselves to blame for their fate, going down to RCB on Sunday evening despite having restricted them to a sub-par 187/9. While the bowlers helped stage a remarkable comeback in the second half of the innings, DC had let the game slip early with the two dropped chances each off RCB’s two top-scorers in the game. Axar Patel led from the front, standing-in, but Delhi will be eager to welcome their regular captain Rishabh Pant back into the XI after serving a one-match suspension for the team’s third over-rate offence of the season – in the game against RR at home.

The spotlight would equally be on his counterpart with LSG playing their first game since KL Rahul was seen to be at the receiving end of an animated chat with the team owner after the big defeat in Hyderabad. His intent in the PowerPlay has often come under scrutiny and alongwith Quinton de Kock’s indifferent form, mounted pressure on the misfiring middle-order. LSG could muster only 165 against SRH, and the home team’s in-form openers took just 9.4 overs to chase it down while severely denting LSG’s NRR that’s now the poorest (-0.769) among the three teams on 12 points.

Not only powerplays, where they have the second-lowest run-rate of 8.15 in IPL 2024, LSG have also fared poorly at the death – their last five-over average of 10.35 is the least among the ten teams. Incidentally, DC are no better, though, having fared only marginally above LSG in death overs at 10.65. DC have lost the most number of wickets – 27 – in PowerPlays and have used the maximum number of players in their top-three (9), which was partly due to the number of injuries to hit their camp.

However, the one silver-lining to that was the emergence of Jake Fraser-McGurk. Of the 293 batters to have faced at least 100 balls in IPL history, Fraser-McGurk is the only one with a strike-rate above 200 (237.41). And it all started in Lucknow when, coming in at one-down, the Australian hit a 31-ball fifty on debut that eventually led to Delhi’s mid-season resurgence.

Squads:

Lucknow Super Giants Squad: KL Rahul(w/c), Quinton de Kock, Marcus Stoinis, Krunal Pandya, Nicholas Pooran, Ayush Badoni, Deepak Hooda, Krishnappa Gowtham, Ravi Bishnoi, Naveen-ul-Haq, Yash Thakur, Yudhvir Singh Charak, Ashton Turner, Manimaran Siddharth, Amit Mishra, Devdutt Padikkal, Arshin Kulkarni, Mohsin Khan, Kyle Mayers, Matt Henry, Prerak Mankad, Arshad Khan, Shamar Joseph

Delhi Capitals Squad: David Warner, Jake Fraser-McGurk, Abishek Porel, Shai Hope, Rishabh Pant(w/c), Kumar Kushagra, Axar Patel, Tristan Stubbs, Rasikh Dar Salam, Kuldeep Yadav, Mukesh Kumar, Ishant Sharma, Khaleel Ahmed, Praveen Dubey, Sumit Kumar, Ricky Bhui, Vicky Ostwal, Gulbadin Naib, Lalit Yadav, Prithvi Shaw, Lizaad Williams, Jhye Richardson, Anrich Nortje, Yash Dhull, Swastik Chikara

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