Chennai eye top four spot against weakened Delhi (Preview)

A Delhi side without Virender Sehwag is probably the weakest team in IPL-4. He is the current ‘Orange cap’ holder and has been instrumental in all their victories so far. His inability to take any further part in Delhi’s campaign due to shoulder surgery has severely dented his team’s chances of realizing even the remote mathematical chance of qualifying for the play-offs. Without him, the team looks like an army stripped of its weapons.

The new captain, James hopes has a tough job at hand to motivate a bunch of players low on confidence because no Delhi player has made a match-winning contribution in any of their eleven matches out of which seven have ended in loses. With three more to go, the odds of a Delhi win are very low.

All of Delhi’s big-buys have failed to make any impact; Irfan Pathan has bowled well only in patches, speedster Umesh Yadav who was touted to be the next big thing in Indian cricket has been pedestrian, David Warner has not fired at the top on a consistent basis. Only player from the beleaguered team to have done well is Venugopal Rao, the batsman has had to do the rescue act during middle overs a number of times. The absence of a quality spinner has only aggravated the problem.

On the contrary, the Chennai side are just a whisker away from a top-four spot. One more win and the Dhoni-led side would have an assured play off slot. There is also the chance of climbing to the top of points table as they have a superior net run rate than the current leaders Mumbai.

Chennai would be favorites in this home game given that they have performed superbly at Chepauk. The spinner friendly pitch has aided their bowling in stifling the opposition batsmen. With the addition of Doug Bollinger the attack looks even more formidable.

Captain Dhoni looked in ominous form in the game against Rajasthan and another player who returned to form in that game was the stylish Murli Vijay. With the likes of Michael Hussey, Badrinath and Suresh Raina already in good touch their batting can dominate any bowling, spare a thought for the Delhi boys.

The raging controversy about the pitch in that Jaipur game has brought the spotlight back on the 22-yard playing strip and it remains to be seen if the Chepauk once again has the familiar dusty slow and low turning track.

CHENNAI

Players who can make impact…

MS Dhoni….Batsmen of his caliber need just one good shot to return to their best and the same happened at Jaipur. The Indian captain may promote himself up the order to bring his attacking style of batting into play for the team.

Doug Boillinger….The Australian pacer has been in terrific form in IPL-4 grabbing a rich haul of wickets. More important, he has been very economical even when bowling the death overs. He makes the Chennai a tough team to beat.

SQUAD

Abhinav Mukund, Albie Morkel, Ben Hilfenhaus, Doug Bollinger, Dwayne Bravo, Faf du Plessis, Ganapathi Vignesh, George Bailey, Joginder Sharma, K Vasudevadas, Michael Hussey, MS Dhoni (c)(wk), Murali Vijay, Nuwan Kulasekara, R Ashwin, S Badrinath, Scott Styris, Shadab Jakati ,Srikkanth Anirudha, Sudeep Tyagi, Suraj Randiv, Suresh Raina, Tim Southee, Wriddhiman Saha,Yo Mahesh.

DELHI

Players who can make impact…

James Hopes….The Australian all-rounder has been entrusted to lead the team in absence of Virender Sehwag and he has to lift his own game to be an inspiration to the whole team that has faltered on numerous occasions this year.

Morne Morkel...In the first few matches, he was quite impressive with the bounce and movement but of late, the performance has nosedived. He will look to change things against a dominant Chennai in their backyard.

SQUAD

Aaron Finch, Aavishkar Salvi , Ajit Agarkar, Ajit Chandila, Andrew McDonald , Ashok Dinda , Colin Ingram, David Warner, Irfan Pathan, James Hopes (c), 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 (withdrawn player), Vivek Yadav, Yogesh Nagar.