Second-place Delhi Capitals (DC) will lock horns with Rajasthan Royals (RR) in Game 23 of the Indian Premier League Season 13 (IPL 2020), which will be played out at the Sharjah Cricket Stadium in Sharjah (UAE) later on Friday evening.
While Delhi Capitals are comfortably placed on the second spot in the points table courtesy their four wins in six outings, Rajasthan Royals are seventh in the bottom half of the table with four points in their five matches.
Shreyas Iyer-led Delhi Capitals have looked more balanced and compact than Rajasthan Royals with both the willow and the white cherry.
While DC’s batting unit has fired on all cylinders with the openers Shikhar Dhawan, Prithvi Shaw and wicket-keeper batsman Rishabh Pant scoring runs on a consistent basis, their bowling performances have also been one of the best in the season, picking up wickets and choking the opponents at the back end.
Delhi’s seam bowling has been lethal with both their South African imports Kagiso Rabada and Anrich Nortje in red hot wicket taking form. Meanwhile, despite the injury to their veteran leg spinner Amit Mishra, DC spinners Ravichandran Ashwin and Aksar Patel have also come to the party by pegging back the oppositions with some economical spells.
Rajasthan Royals on the other hand have faltered a bit after a promising start to the tournament. They will relish playing Delhi Capitals at the batting paradise in Sharjah where their power hitters in Sanju Samson and Steve Smith put on a six hitting spectacle to guide the team to two stellar wins against RR and KXIP.
RR do have worries in their batting unit as their batsman have struggled to showcase the same form they did in the first week of the tournament. While both Samson and Smith have looked out of sorts in the recent games, Jos Buttler and experienced campaigner Robin Uttappa have struggled to get going in the tournament.
RR also lack depth in the batting as they really don’t have a quality finisher in their ranks. All-rounders Rahul Tewatia and Tom Curran have been handy but they would like more punch with the willow down the order.
English seamer Jofra Archer has been the pick of the bowlers for RR, striking some really crucial blows ..However, he has been expensive at times. Archer would need good support from Jaydev Unadkat and Kartik Tyagi to tame a power packed Delhi Capitals batting lineup.
RR spinner Shreyas Gopal has been one of the most impressive spinners in the tournament so far. Gopal has bowled with great control and picked up some prized scalps in the tournament.
Here are the complete squads for both Rajasthan Royals and Delhi Capitals in IPL 2020:
Rajasthan Royals: Jos Buttler, Ben Stokes, Sanju Samson (w-k), Andrew Tye, KartikTyagi, Steven Smith (captain), Ankit Rajpoot, Shreyas Gopal, Rahul Tewatia, Jaydev Unadkat, Mayank Markande, Mahipal Lomror, Oshane Thomas, Riyan Parag, Yashasvi Jaiswal, Anuj Rawat, Akash Singh, David Miller, MananVohra, Shashank Singh, Varun Aaron, Tom Curran, Robin Uthappa, Aniruddha Joshi, Jofra Archer
Delhi Capitals: Shreyas Iyer (captain), Kagiso Rabada, Marcus Stoinis, Sandeep Lamichhane, Ishant Sharma, Ajinkya Rahane, Ravichandran Ashwin, Shikhar Dhawan, Shimron Hetmyer, Alex Carey, Mohit Sharma, Prithvi Shaw, Lalit Yadav, Avesh Khan, Axar Patel, Tushar Deshpande, Rishabh Pant, Harshal Patel, Keemo Paul, Anrich Nortje, Daniel Sams
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