Delhi Daredevils have the unwanted reputation of being the worst team in IPL history. Their performance in IPL 2014 was really quite pathetic, and it hasn’t been any different this year either, as they have lost both the matches played so far. Delhi Daredevils have lost an unbelievable 11 IPL matches in a row over the last two seasons.
One of their players, Shreyas Iyer tried to explain their run of defeats: “It has been a really good experience so far playing under pressure, two close games in two outings. So that adds to your experience.”
Another, JP Duminy, said that he was heartbroken at the one run defeat against the Chennai Super Kings. And crushed at losing to the Rajasthan Royals from a winning position.
It’s hard to identify why the Daredevils perform so poorly on such a consistent basis, IPL after IPL. It’s not that they do not have the players. For long they have had Virender Sehwag, Morne Morkel, David Warner and other top players.
But IPL is not just about top players. The best and most consistent IPL teams such as the Kolkata Knight Riders have high quality local talent in addition to the top marquee players – which the Daredevils have always lacked.
Also, the Daredevils have suffered from an absence of team spirit and there has never been any cohesiveness about them. Everybody just does their thing. We are not sure buying someone like Yuvraj Singh, who is well past his prime, was a good idea either. They even made Yuvraj the highest paid IPL player for this season, which was a stupid thing to do.
Kings XI Punjab, on the other hand, have everything good going for them. They have perhaps the most explosive young batsmen in Twenty20 cricket, Glenn Maxwell and David Miller. They have Mitchell Johnson, the fastest bowler in world cricket.
They also have a young pair of fast-medium bowlers in Sandeep Sharma and Anureet Singh, who share the new ball. Here’s what Mitchell Johnson thinks about them: “They swung the ball last year as well and there is no difference there, but they have definitely added some more pace to their bowling.”
Well, Johnson himself has been terrific in this IPL so far after having earlier won the World Cup back home in Australia. He would be relishing bowling to Yuvraj Singh, who is known to have his issues with the fast rising ball. In fact Yuvraj was never known to be a great player of genuine fast bowling even in his prime. So it’s quite easy to predict who would win a duel between Mitchell Johnson and Yuvraj Singh.
What goes in the favor of Daredevils is that they have picked high quality spinners this time around, in Amit Mishra and Imran Tahir. They are both very different – Tahir is much faster through the air and gives the ball a real rip. Mishra flights the ball better. Together, they are perhaps the best spin bowling pair in this IPL season. But that’s really the only positive the Delhi Daredevils have got going for them.
We expect an easy win for Kings XI Punjab.
Watch Delhi Daredevils take on Kings XI Punjab, at 8:00 PM on Wednesday evening live on Sony Six!
