New Delhi: A full-blown attack by the Gujarat Titans may hurt the Delhi Capitals hard as the latter lack the bowling guile of international standards to take on a much-rounded Hardik Pandya's side. Gujarat's first outside home match against Delhi Capitals will not dent any of their ambitions on Tuesday even after the loss of Kane Williamson to a knee injury.
Contrarily, DC looks clueless as they did in their last outing against Lucknow Super Giants where they were beaten by a massive 50-run gap. The issue at hand is DC's lack of high-caliber pacers, especially in the absence of their fast-bowling attack leader Anrich Nortje.
They have Chetan Sakariya and Mukesh Kumar in their ranks but despite being hard-working cricketers, they lack the required variations and speed to bring discomfort to the international players. Shubman Gill would take this as another opportunity to pile on his already mountain of runs that he has scored recently while GT's skipper Hardik Pandya would anticipate clobbering the balls well over the ropes with ease given his comfort with the medium pace.
With Khaleel Ahmed, the issue always has been his catching on the field which makes him a one-dimensional player. Even during the training session, he is witnessed dropping high flying catches frequently. The drop of Kyle Mayers at a crucial juncture was one of the reasons behind Delhi losing out in the opener.
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The experienced Ishant Sharma, meanwhile, is warming the bench and it can be safely said that he was picked at his base price for showing respect to the player who has featured India in 100 Tests. The fact that he can play as an impact player is out of bounds as his pace has dropped and has lost his skiddy-ness too, both of which were his prime weapons during the peak of his career. However, not all is down in the dumps with the DC camp as both Nortje and Lungi Ngidi have arrived and made themselves available for selections on Tuesday.
The Delhi coach, Ricky Ponting, may even look to upgrade the playing combination by getting Mustafizur Rahaman, an experienced international campaigner, in place of Sakariya which would also lead to Rilee Rossouw to warm the benches.
Meanwhile, the batting too looked out-of-sorts against a high-pace attack in the previous game and David Warner would expect Prithvi Shaw and Sarfaraz Khan to mend their mistakes and go out all guns blazing. Both had an unforgettable outing in their last match as Prithvi was beaten by the sheer pace of Wood, being unable to bring his bat down on time while Khan was a goner playing the ramp shot.
As for Khan and the eternal question of his no-entry to the Indian squad, the issue has always been his ability to handle short balls, which many believe, doesn't have the technicalities required to play a high-speeding delivery. The openers need to take the game forward when they arrive at the strip.
Mohammed Shami and Pandya have the quality in them to make the Delhi batters feel uncomfortable. And with Alzarri Joseph, Yash Dayal and ever-consistent Rashid Khan, they possess the capability to blow the DC batting away at their own volition.
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In the same domain, DC doesn't have the resources to match their opposition's traits as they lack quality players to be substituted as 'impact players'. Ripal Patel, Lalit Yadav, and Aman Hakim Khan are good domestic players but don't have what it takes to take on the international players.
Delhi will be desperate for their foreign recruits to up the ante for them.
Gujarat Titans: Hardik Pandya (c), Shubman Gill, Kona Bharat (wk), Wriddhiman Saha (wkk), Rahul Tewatia, Abhinav Manohar, Mohammed Shami, Pradeep Sangwan, R Sai Kishore, Vijay Shankar, Sai Sudharshan, Rashid Khan, Shivam Mavi, Mathew Wade, Odean Smith, Urvil Patel, Darshan Nalkande, David Miller (not available in first 2 games), Josh Little (first match not available), Yash Dayal, Jayant Yadav, Odean Smith, Noor Ahmed and Alzarri Joseph.
Delhi Capitals: David Warner (c), Prithvi Shaw, Mitchell Marsh, Manish Pandey, Rovman Powell, Rilee Rossouw, Sarfaraz Khan (wk), Phil Salt (wk), Abhishek Porel (wk), Axar Patel, Kuldeep Yadav, Lalit Yadav, Ripal Patel, Ishant Sharma, Chetan Sakariya, Khaleel Ahmed, Aman Hakim Khan, Praveen Dubey, Kamlesh Nagarkoti, Yash Dhull, Mukesh Kumar and Vicky Ostwal.
Match begins at 7:30pm.
