Both Rising Pune Supergiant and Delhi Daredevils have given a good account of themselves in this IPL 2017 so far. Pune have perhaps the best batting line-up in the IPL with the likes of Steve Smith, MS Dhoni, Ajinkya Rahane and Ben Stokes featuring – each of who can win a match on their own.
Delhi Daredevils have been weakened by the injury to Quinton De Kock and the withdrawal of JP Duminy. They are certainly lacking in the batting department, which is why they would desperately want Angelo Matthews, the Sri Lankan captain to come back into the side after a prolonged injury layoff.
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They do have a number of bowling options. Perhaps choosing Ben Hilfenhaus instead of signing up a decent batsman was not the right thing to do, when you consider the amount of bowling options available to Delhi – Mohammed Shami, Kagiso Rabada, Chris Morris, Carlos Brathwaite, 8 Pat Cummins, Amit Mishra, Shahbaz Nadeem, Zaheer Khan M Ashwin and Jayant Yadav.
They are a bunch of good, international class bowlers. There is no question in anybody’s mind that Delhi are the best bowling unit in the IPL 2017, but the batting is a huge concern.
Rishabh Pant is one of the best young batsmen in the country today. His amazing knock of 57 against Royal Challengers Bangalore was played amid great tragedy. Rishabh had lost his father the night before. The funeral was on the day of the match. Yet, he came back and almost won the match for his team from a losing position.
His team-mate, the South African fast bowler Chris Morris has rightly said that the young man is going to be a big player for India in the future. That remains to be seen. But there seems to be no doubt that Rishabh is going to be the main player for Delhi this season.
Imran Tahir was dropped by the Delhi side for this season and he was picked at the last minute by the Rising Pune team. He has been exception in the IPL 2017 so far having picked up 5 wickets. He will be desperate to get some revenge in tonight’s match against his old team.
Ben Stokes’ brilliant innings against Kings XI Punjab certainly justifies his selection, but his bowling form needs improvement. Rising Pune have a very poor fast bowling attack.
The Teams
Rising Pune Supergiant: 1 Ajinkya Rahane, 2 Mayank Agarwal/Faf du Plessis, 3 Steven Smith (capt), 4 Ben Stokes, 5 MS Dhoni (wk), 6 Manoj Tiwary, 7 Rajat Bhatia, 8 Dan Christian/Shardul Thakur, 9 Rahul Chahar, 10 Imran Tahir, 11 Ashok Dinda/Ishwar Pandey
Delhi Daredevils: 1 Aditya Tare, 2 Sam Billings, 3 Karun Nair, 4 Sanju Samson, 5 Rishabh Pant (wk), 6 Chris Morris, 7 Carlos Brathwaite/Corey Anderson, 8 Pat Cummins, 9 Amit Mishra/Jayant Yadav, 10 Shahbaz Nadeem, 11 Zaheer Khan (capt)
Watch the Rising Pune Supergiant take on Delhi Daredevils live from Pune on April 11, 2017 at 2000 local (1430 GMT)!
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