Delhi keen to break home jinx (Preview)

Two days later and Delhi again face Pune in the IPL but this time around Delhi will be playing the hosts. The home team having got better of the newcomers in the first leg will be keen to drive home the advantage while Pune will look to avenge that loss.

Delhi leapfrogged four places in the points table following the win and a repeat of that performance would keep their upward journey going. This would be redemption of sorts for the team that spent a good part of this tournament at the bottom. But, Delhi have to overcome the home jinx where could win only one match in four outings.

The Kotla pitch has been much in news for being unresponsive to the pace heavy Delhi attack. And its sluggishness has curbed the stroke making of the free flowing batsmen that dominate Delhi’s line-up. The talk of grass on the strip has been doing the rounds but even that didn’t help their cause.

The opening pair of David Warner and Virender Sehwag has fired but rarely in unison. Although, Viru played an uncharacteristic knock in the last match to take his team out of trouble, Warner will also have to come good at some stage on home soil.

The middle order of the home team is also warming up to the task and has put in a string of good scores. All rounder James hopes, Venugopal Rao and Irfan Pathan of late have tried to carry on the good work done by their openers.

However, one area of concern for the home team will be the lack of a quality spinner among the ranks. The inclusion of Roelof van der Merwe is a welcome sign though a fit James Hopes will make it difficult for him to retain his place.

Kochi have gone from bad to worse having lost three matches on a trot. The fantastic win over Mumbai seems to have come ages ago. The collective failure of the batting line-up has made Kochi a vulnerable team on all surfaces. Brendon McCullum has been a flop show post his injury and the man with the silken touch, Mahela Jayawardene failing to put something substantial on the board in a regular basis. Plus, the failures of Brad Hodge are piles pressure on the fragile lower order.

To make matters worse the Kochi bowlers have failed to make inroads in the opposition batting; they couldn’t restrict Delhi to a manageable total on a bowler friendly surface.

With whatever Delhi have got and Pune’s woeful form a repeat of previous match is the most likely outcome.

DELHI

Players who can make impact…

Virendar Sehwag…Delhi skipper’s form was a bit iffy failing to put up good performances consistently. All that changed in Kochi with Sehwag playing one of his better innings in the format to win the game for his side. He will yet again be Delhi’s mainstay and could well impact the result with his batting heroics.

Morne Morkel…Tall South African fast bowler has been one of the top fast bowlers of the tournament getting the ball to bounce on dead Indian pitches. If curators decide to leave some grass on Kotla pitch, Kochi might well have to face chin music from big Morne.

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.

KOCHI

Players who can make impact…

Mahela Jayawardene…If Delhi’s fortunes rest on Sehwag, Pune will want their captain to give them solidity at the top of order. Mahela would be eager to lead from the front and take the responsibility to counter decent Delhi pace attack himself.

Muttiah Muralitharan….The king of spin has looked a shadow of himself during the whole tournament and even being dropped from the playing eleven. He didn’t play against Delhi in home fixture and in all likelihood is expected make it to the playing eleven to boost Kochi’s spin attack. He can prove very hard to pick for Delhi’s middle order boasting of some inexperience.

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