Delhi Daredevils are the worst team in the IPL 2017 – make no mistake about that. Delhi have been the perennial underperformers in the IPL. They have been at the bottom of the league standings for much of the 10-year old IPL history. They remain at the bottom even with a coach like Rahul Dravid at the helm. One does not understand why.
Perhaps Dravid’s faith in young players has worked against him. None of the young Delhi Daredevils batsmen have done well, with the exception of Sanju Samson. Karun Nair, Shreyas Iyer, Rishabh Pant – they are all much fancied players, but they have really underperformed in this IPL.
Consider Karun Nair. When he made a triple century playing in only his third Test for India against England, everybody thought that India had found their next big player. But since then Karun’s performances have left a lot to be desired. He looks like a very ordinary batsman, who struggles to even get into the double figures.
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Karun’s average of 12.71 is the lowest among batsmen who have played in the top three of any IPL team this season with a minimum of five innings. He also has the lowest strike rate, just 90.81. His highest score this season was only 33.
Clearly, he is a very poor form, which indicates that he has let success get to his head. He would also be devastated by what happened in the last game which he captained – Delhi Daredevils were dismissed for a mere 67 runs, which was overtaken by Kings XI Punjab in just 8 overs without losing any wickets. That was a humiliating defeat indeed.
Sunrisers Hyderabad are third in the points table and they have done very well recently, beating Kolkata Knight Riders by 48 runs and King XI Punjab by 26 runs. They are the in form team of the IPL and with captain David Warner in great form, they will fancy their chances of defending their title as the reigning IPL champions.
The Teams
Delhi Daredevils: 1 Sanju Samson, 2 Sam Billings, 3 Marlon Samuels, 4 Rishabh Pant (wk), 5 Shreyas Iyer, 6 Karun Nair (capt), 7 Chris Morris, 8 Kagiso Rabada, 9 Shahbaz Nadeem/Jayant Yadav, 10 Amit Mishra, 11 Mohammed Shami
Sunrisers Hyderabad: 1 David Warner (capt), 2 Shikhar Dhawan, 3 Kane Williamson, 4 Yuvraj Singh, 5 Moises Henriques, 6 Naman Ojha (wk), 7 Bipul Sharma/Deepak Hooda, 8 Bhuvneshwar Kumar, 9 Rashid Khan, 10 Siddarth Kaul, 11 Mohammed Siraj
Watch Delhi Daredevils play Sunrisers Hyderabad tonight at 8 pm live on Sony Six!
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