Battle of the basement - (Preview)

This is a match-up between two sides that have failed to find their feet in IPL till date. Kochi and Delhi are stationed at the bottom of the league standings and the side losing this match would have to win almost each of its remaining matches to qualify for the knock-out stages of the tournament.

Kochi have been let-down by their batting on numerous occasions. The problem is aggravated by the failure of their overseas batsman to contribute on a consistent basis. And, the nondescript Kochi lower order has been nothing less than a headache for the team management. The big-hitting Ravindra Jadeja has been the lone exception with some decent scores to his credit.

Kochi skipper M Jayawardene and powerful hitter Brendon McCullum would have to take the attack to the opposition if they are to avoid their third consecutive loss. Star spinner Muttiah Muralitharan’s deteriorating form is also not helping the home team’s cause.

This would be Delhi’s away match after a long time having played four consecutive matches at the Kotla ground. Though they could not take advantage of it and lost three of these four encounters. So its no surprise to find Delhi stationed at the last position of the points chart.

Delhi is plagued by the overdependence on opening pair of David Warner and Virender Sehwag. Whenever the duo fails to put something substantial on the board, Delhi batting is in trouble and fails to recover from the initial shocks. The likes of James Hopes and Venugopal Rao have chipped-in with some useful scores but they have been few and far between.

Morne Morkel is the vital cog in the Delhi attack and the team will once again look up to him to do the damage early on so that their younger brigade of pacers can do the containing job. The Kochi pitch helps the fast bowlers with some steep bounce and that should give some heart to the visitors.

All in all this is match where form more than ability would decide the winner and given the way these teams have played so far consistency is one thing missing in them.

KOCHI

Players who can make impact…

Brad Hodge.…The man with most runs in this slam-bang format of cricket but Kochi haven’t benefited so far from his vast experience. Kochi team management has persisted with him in all their matches and it hasn’t paid-off till now. Maybe, the desperate situation Kochi find themselves in would spur him to make a sizeable contribution.

Muttiah Muralitharan….The king of spin has looked a shadow of himself during the whole tournament and even being dropped from the playing eleven. And, like all champions he will find an occasion to silence his critics who have for long been saying that the great man is over the hill to play T20 cricket.

SQUAD

B McCullum, Balachandra Akhil, Brad Hodge, Chandan Madan, Deepak Chougule, Gnaneswara Rao, John Hastings, Kedar Jadhav, M Jayawardene (c), Michael Klinger, Muttiah Muralitharan, Owais Shah, P Padmanabhan, Parthiv Patel (wk), Raiphi Gomez, Ramesh Powar, Ravindra Jadeja, RP Singh, S Sreesanth, Steve O'Keefe, Steven Smith, Sushant Marathe, Tanmay Srivastava, Thissara Perera, Vinay Kumar,VVS Laxman, Yashpal Singh

DELHI

Players who can make impact…

Virender Sehwag…….The ‘Nawab of Najafgarh’ has generally struggled so far and his inconsistency has hit the team’s overall performance. There is hope though as the bouncy Kochi track will his suit his style of batting.Irfan Pathan… Left arm pacer Irfan got the ball to bend into the right-handers against Kolkata after struggling to find rhythm and form in first three weeks this season. He looked very menacing and was able to swing the ball and if he continues to repeat Thursday’s performance he will be more than a handful on Kochi pitch.

SQUAD

Aaron Finch, Aavishkar Salvi , Ajit Agarkar, Ajit Chandila, Andrew McDonald , Ashok Dinda , Colin Ingram, David Warner, Irfan Pathan, James Hopes, Matthew Wade (wk), Morne Morkel, Naman Ojha (wk), Prashant Naik, Rajesh Pawar, Robert Frylinck,Robin Bist, Roelof van der Merwe, Shahbaz Nadeem , Sridharan Sriram , Tejashwi Yadav, Travis Birt, Umesh Yadav, Unmukt Chand, Varun Aaron, Venugopal Rao, Vikas Mishra, Virender Sehwag(c), Vivek Yadav, Yogesh Nagar.