This is the first match between Delhi Daredevils and Gujarat Lions in IPL 2017, which is really surprising as many teams have already played each other twice. Clearly something went wrong somewhere in the scheduling.
Delhi Daredevils face the prospect of being without captain Zaheer Khan yet again, who has been suffering from a hamstring injury. They have already lost the services of Sam Billings, who has left to England to play for the national team. They will have the services of Chris Morris and Kagiso Rabada, their key South African players, only till May 7.
So this is a team that has been stretched already and faces a real shortage of talent. They find themselves totally dependent on their domestic talent now.
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It is the same with Gujarat Lions, who have lost Jason Roy, who has left to serve the England team. They have only 5 overseas players at the moment, Brendon McCullum, Dwayne Smith, Aaron Finch, James Faulkner and Chirag Suri.
Chirag Suri is really not up to the standards of any of these players, so it is unlikely that he will get a game even if one of the overseas players was to get injured or become unavailable. So they are effectively left with just 4 overseas players.
Could either of the teams qualify for the playoffs? That looks difficult as of now, as both of them are in the bottom half of the table with just 6 points. Lions have to win their remaining games to qualify, just one loss and they will be out.
Their next 3 games are against Delhi Daredevils home and away, and then one against Kings XI Punjab. They also have a game against Sunrisers last.
Delhi are pretty much in the same situation, but have a game in hand, which is useful. But they cannot really afford to lose any more games, they have lost enough. Their abject defeat against Kings XI Punjab is still fresh on everyone’s minds.
The Teams
Delhi Daredevils: 1 Sanju Samson, 2 Karun Nair (capt), 3 Shreyas Iyer, 4 Rishabh Pant (wk), 5 Angelo Mathews, 6 Corey Anderson, 7 Chris Morris, 8 Jayant Yadav, 9 Kagiso Rabada/Pat Cummins, 10 Amit Mishra/Shahbaz Nadeem, 11 Mohammed Shami
Gujarat Lions: 1 Brendon McCullum, 2 Ishan Kishan, 3 Suresh Raina (capt), 4 Aaron Finch, 5 Dwayne Smith, 6 Dinesh Karthik (wk), 7 Ravindra Jadeja, 8 James Faulkner, 9 Pradeep Sangwan, 10 Basil Thampi, 11 Ankit Soni
Watch Delhi Daredevils beat Gujarat Lions later tonight at 8 pm live on Sony Six!
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