The Hindu : Sport / Cricket : Daredevils starts favourites

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Monday, May 19, 2008
ePaper | Mobile/PDA Version

Sport

Sport - Cricket

Daredevils starts favourites

K.C. Vijaya Kumar

— Photo: K. Bhagya Prakash

HOPING FOR THE BEST: A.B. de Villiers feels Delhi Daredevils has to win all its remaining matches to stay in contention for a place in the last eight.

Bangalore: It has been a summer of discontent for Rahul Dravid and Co. as Royal Challengers Bangalore languishes at the bottom of the DLF-Indian Premier League (IPL) with just four points in its kitty.

Eight defeats from 10 matches and criticism — both direct as well as veiled — from Vijay Mallya has only aggravated the team’s turmoil.

Mallya has subsequently professed his faith in the team.

The clichéd “retrieving lost pride” motto will hold good as the team gears up for its Monday night’s match against Virender Sehwag’s Delhi Daredevils at the M. Chinnaswamy Stadium here.

The last time the two teams clashed, Daredevils won by 10 runs in Delhi.

Sehwag’s men, however, slumped a bit after that and with 10 points from 11 matches now, the team will have to slug it out for a semifinal spot in the coming days.

Sehwag and a prolific Gambhir have often set an aggressive tone as openers which the middle order, with the exception of perhaps Shikhar Dhawan, has failed to build on.

The bowling, with McGrath leading its strangle-and-scalp act, has an incisive look and the support cast in Mohammad Asif, Yomahesh and leg-spinner Amit Mishra, can be quite a handful.

Squaring up to the Daredevils is the home team which has missed its batting form and the requisite slice of luck. To make it worse, unlike in the other teams, the local talent so far has failed to flower. The bowling, helmed by a resurgent Zaheer Khan, has often been forced to play catch up after being let down by the batsmen.

Must-win situation

Meanwhile, Delhi Daredevils’ A.B. de Villiers said his team has to win the remaining three matches to stay in contention for a semifinals berth.

“We have to win three out of three to have a chance of making it to the semifinals.

“We haven’t won as many matches as we would have liked to win,” the South African batsman told the media here on Sunday. On Saturday’s loss to Kings XI Punjab, de Villiers said: “It was a close game and we did not capitalise on the big moments.”

De Villiers also believes that Royal Challengers has players with ability though he added that they are coping with excess pressure.

“It is a good team but I believe there is a lot of pressure on the players from the top-level.”

The teams (from): Royal Challengers Bangalore: Rahul Dravid (Capt.), J. Arun Kumar, Virat Kohli, Misbah-ul-Haq, Jacques Kallis, Mark Boucher, Dale Steyn, R. Vinay Kumar, Sunil Joshi, Anil Kumble, Bharat Chipli, Zaheer Khan, Praveen Kumar, Cameron White, Devraj Patil.

Delhi Daredevils: Virender Sehwag (Capt.), Gautam Gambhir, Shikhar Dhawan, A.B. de Villiers, Rajat Bhatia, Shoaib Malik, Dinesh Karthik, Glenn McGrath, Mohammad Asif, V. Yomahesh, Pradeep Sangwan, Farveez Maharoof, Mithun Manhas, Brett Geeves, Manoj Tiwari, Amit Mishra, Tillakaratne Dilshan.

Match starts at 8 p.m.

Printer friendly page
Send this article to Friends by E-Mail

Sport