Gujarat Lions and Delhi Daredevils have nothing but to play for pride in the 50th match of the IPL 2017 at the Green Park Stadium, Kanpur. The two teams, after squandering an ample number of chances, are currently out of the playoffs race and would be just vying for a respectable finish.
With nothing to lose, both Lions and DD can play with a carefree approach. Win or lose, it won’t cause any serious impact on other teams, except for the fact that if Kings XI Punjab loses their game against KKR, they might slip down to the sixth position and the winner of this fixture would go one place higher, which didn’t happen, as of now.
Previous encounter:
The two met just a few days ago in an epic high scoring encounter which eventually saw Delhi Daredevils edge past the opposition narrowly. Powered by the young duo of Sanju Samson and Rishabh Pant, DD, playing on their home ground, nailed down a target of 209 in just 17.3 overs.
Sanju Samson opened the innings and contributed 61 from just 31 deliveries while Rishabh Pant hammered a brutal 97 from just 43 balls at a strike of the rate of over 225.
Win/Loss:
L L W W L (Most recent first )
Talking Points:
Daredevils will be without Chris Morris, Angelo Mathews and Kagiso Rababa, as the trio has left the IPL franchise to join their respective national squad. This will be a great blow, as it weakens the team to a huge extent, although they have only three matches before bowing out of this edition.
The South African duo of Morris and Rababa will be the ones who will be missed. Mathews, who made a late entry in this season, wasn’t a vital part and played only three forgettable matches. England’s Sam Billings will also not be there.
However, both Morris and Rabada were regular overseas players in the starting XI for a majority of the matches. Morris featured in nine matches and picked 12 wickets while Rababa, despite having some tough time with his economy rate, managed to end with six wickets in as many matches.
Here is the predicted XI:
Carlos Brathwaite will most likely come in as the replacement for Rabada. The burly all-rounder will fill Rabada’s bowling shoes and also add more muscle to the batting line-up.
However, from the fans perspective, it will good to use this opportunity to give one out of the two young fast bowling duo – Chama Milind and Khaleel Ahmed – an exposure of the IPL.
Even Navdeep Saini, the Delhi fast bowler, can also be a good option. The idea of including these men might sound unsuitable but DD has nothing significant to gain even if it wins. Therefore, the upcoming matches can be used to give these youngsters some more hand to hand experience of bowling to the likes of Aaron Finch and Suresh Raina.
Here is the XI:
Sanju Samson, Karun Nair, Rishabh Pant (WK), Shreyas Iyer, Marlon Samuels, Corey Anderson, Pat Cummins, Carlos Braithwaite, Zaheer Khan (C), Amit Mishra, Mohammed Shami