Delhi Daredevils will be aiming to display more impact in their batting department as they face a formidable challenge from defending champions Sunrisers Hyderabad in an IPL encounter, in Hyderabad, on Wednesday.
It will be an arduous task for the Daredevils as they face a team that has both current 'Orange Cap' holder David Warner (235 runs) and 'Purple Cap' owner Bhuvneshwar Kumar (15 wickets).
Both teams met with contrasting fate during their previous encounters with Sunrisers edging past Kinghs XI Punjab in an exciting last over finish while Daredevils couldn't stop KKR from reaching the target in another final over face-off.
The points table is at a nascent stage with Sunrisers on six points from five games sitting at the third position while Daredevils is lying fourth with four points.
In a fast-paced league, a couple of matches can completely turn things around.
For Delhi, it will be important to have consistent impact in their batting. They have had forceful performances at the start of the innings and at the end but the two games --- vs RCB and KKR that they have lost has been primarily due to their inability to force the pace during middle overs.
Delhi boasts of some of the spirited batsmen in the tournament in its ranks in Sanju Samson, who scored a century the other day, Sam Billings, Rishabh Pant, Corey Anderson and Chris Morris.
Though the Delhi batsmen have been in good form especially Rishabh Pant, this edition's centurion Sanju Samson and all-rounder Chris Morris, problem has been consistency.
The slowish pitch at the Uppal with an in-form Bhuvneshwar and Afghan sensation Rashid Khan could pose a few problems.
It will be interesting if an out of sorts Angelo Mathews gets a second game.
Delhi's bowling, comprising skipper Zaheer Khan, Morris, Shahbaz Nadeem and Pat Cummins, besides Anderson and Amit Mishra have played a vital role in the team's success so far.
They need to come up with another accomplished effort in order to stop an in-form Warner, who has shown a different side to his batting adapting to vagaries of sub-continental pitches.
For Hyderabad, Ashish Nehra may make a comeback in place of Barinder Sran, who was taken to task by Manan Vohra.
Yuvraj Singh would like to make amends for his last match's failure while presence of Moises Henriques as seamer all-rounder and Ben Cutting as the back-up lends the team much-needed solidity.
The teams (from)
Sunrisers Hyderabad: David Warner (C ), Tanmay Agarwal, Ricky Bhui, Bipul Sharma, Ben Cutting, Shikhar Dhawan, Eklavya Dwivedi, Moises Henriques, Deepak Hooda, Chris Jordan, Siddharth Kaul, Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Ben Laughlin, Abhimanyu Mithun, Mohammad Nabi, Mohammed Siraj, Mustafizur Rahman, Ashish Nehra, Naman Ojha (wk), Rashid Khan, Vijay Shankar, Barinder Sran, Pravin Tambe, Kane Williamson and Yuvraj Singh.
Delhi Daredevils: Zaheer Khan (capt), Mohammad Shami, Shahbaz Nadeem, Jayant Yadav, Amit Mishra, Shreyas Iyer, Sanju Samson, Karun Nair, Rishabh Pant, CV Milind, Khaleel Ahmed, Pratyush Singh, Murugan Ashwin, Aditya Tare, Shashank Singh, Ankit Bawane, Navdeep Saini, Corey Anderson, Angelo Mathews, Pat Cummins, Kagiso Rabada, Chris Morris, Carlos Brathwaite, Sam Billings.
