Deadline: May 8, 2019 at 7.30 PM IST
Venue: Dr. Y.S. Rajasekhara Reddy ACA-VDCA Cricket Stadium, Visakhapatnam
Pitch and conditions
IPL is back at Vizag. The city isn’t a home to any IPL team, but the venue is often kept for contingency plans. Three years ago, when Mumbai High Court requested not host any IPL matches in Maharashtra, Vizag was used. Before that, Vizag became second home to Hyderabad due to Telangana agitation. The now-defunct Pune too have played three matches here.
The track at Vizag goes easy on the batters. The pitch is as flat as you get. However, dark clouds have been looming over the city of late. Players and fans will be praying for rain gods to have mercy upon them.
Probable XI for Delhi: Prithvi Shaw, Shikhar Dhawan, Shreyas Iyer (c), Rishabh Pant (wk), Colin Ingram, Sherfane Rutherford, Axar Patel, Keemo Paul/Sandeep Lamichhane, Amit Mishra, Trent Boult, Ishant Sharma
Probable XI for Hyderabad: Wriddhiman Saha (wk), Martin Guptill, Manish Pandey, Kane Williamson (c), Vijay Shankar, Yusuf Pathan/Deepak Hooda, Mohammad Nabi, Rashid Khan, Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Khaleel Ahmed, Basil Thampi/Sandeep Sharma/Siddharth Kaul
Fantasy team
We have opted for a fantasy cricket team on the basis of players’ impact, recent performances, and credit points.
Note that you can, now, change your team after the toss.
My XI: Rishabh Pant (wk), Shreyas Iyer, Manish Pandey (vc), Shikhar Dhawan (c), Kane Williamson, Axar Patel, Mohammad Nabi, Khaleel Ahmed, Amit Mishra, Rashid Khan, Ishant Sharma
Both teams boast of quality bowling units
Delhi and Hyderabad have won one game each against each other this season. In both games, however, we saw a flurry of wickets. Hyderabad won the first game, a low-scoring encounter. However, they made mess of a 156-run chase in the second game, slumping from 72 for no loss to 116 all out.
Both teams have excellent bowlers in their armoury. Had Kagiso Rabada – the highest wicket-taker of the season – not injured his back, it would have been an icing on the cake. But Delhi did not seem to have missed Rabada, for Ishant Sharma picked three of the top four wickets in their last match. Mishra exploited the foundation laid by Ishant and added three wickets to his tally. Boult, who replaced Rabada, finished with figures of 2 for 27.
Hyderabad, on the other hand, have Rashid and Bhuvi at their disposal. If anything, this is a contest between two quality bowling attacks.
The batters will have to be mindful of their strokeplay. The pitch may favour them, but the likes of Boult, Mishra, Bhuvi, among others won’t be easy to deal with.
Delhi’s batting gives them edge over Hyderabad
To play without openers who scored bulk of the runs would make matters worse for any team. Although they will not agree to the fact, Hyderabad do not look the same team as they were with David Warner and Jonny Bairstow at the top. The onus has fallen on Saha and Guptill who warmed benches for better part of the tournament. They have been lucky that Pandey has found his lost mojo and Williamson scored a resolute 70 in the last match.
Delhi, apart from Shaw’s form, have no issues in their batting whatsoever. With 486 runs at 37.3, Dhawan is the sixth-highest run-scorer. His last eight innings include as many as five half-centuries, with a highest score of 97*. Following him are Shreyas (442 runs) and Pant (401 runs).
Also get to know the tips & tricks on how to play fantasy cricket.