New Delhi, May 16: Vaibhav Sooryavanshi’s audacious strokeplay will come up against seam-and-swing master Mitchell Starc as Rajasthan Royals and Delhi Capitals lock horns in a high-stakes IPL “Sunday Suspense” clash with playoff hopes hanging by a thread.
While DC’s qualification chances (10 points from 12 games) are already slim, a defeat would officially knock them out of the playoff race.
For the Royals (12 points from 11 games), the week-long break is expected to have rejuvenated the squad. They would not want DC to play party poopers and allow Punjab Kings (13 points from 12 games) to breathe easy.
No teenager since the genius Sachin Tendulkar has captured the public imagination quite like the schoolboy from Samastipur in Bihar, who already boasts a sizeable fan base.
His ‘Capital Debut’ at the Ferozeshah Kotla is no less than the cricketing equivalent of a ‘Met Gala’ with the who’s who of NCR clamouring for free passes.
Delhi Capitals’ fan base remains something of a paradox in the IPL’s 19 years of existence. When Royal Challengers Bengaluru play at the Kotla, the crowd rallies behind Virat Kohli, while the arrival of Chennai Super Kings turns the stands canary yellow, with jerseys bearing the iconic No. 7 of MS Dhoni dominating the scene.
Having failed to build an organic fan base, it is hardly surprising that fans queueing up at the Kotla turnstiles would be there to watch their chubby-cheeked hero in the flesh for the first time.
But amid this hype, the sub-plot that will intrigue one and all would be how Starc can stop a marauding Sooryavanshi, who has hit 40 sixes in 11 games while scoring 440 runs at a stunning strike-rate of 236.55.
Over the years, Starc has blown hot and cold during IPL seasons. There have been matches where he has been taken to the cleaners by unheralded Indian batters, and there have been matches like the 2024 IPL final, when he set up KKR’s title win with the most memorable opening spell in nearly two decades.
One wouldn’t know which Starc would turn up this Sunday but if it is the ‘Test bowler’ Mitchell Starc, then Sooryavanshi will have some really tough problems to solve.
If the Aussie veteran, with more than 400 Test victims, gets early seam and swing, it will be a test of Sooryavanshi’s technique as the teenager’s game is more about hand-eye co-ordination than footwork.
Of late, DC have been playing on tracks which aren’t exactly very high scoring but the lack of bite in their international spin attack, comprising skipper Axar Patel (10 wickets from 12 games) and Kuldeep Yadav (7 wickets from 11 games), has been the problem.
Neither has the duo been penetrative nor restrictive enough, which has proved to be a bane for Team Delhi.
The pace attack save Lungi Ngidi has looked pedestrian, especially the Indian bowlers like T Natarajan (ER of 11.18) and Mukesh Kumar (ER 10.67), who could once again get thrashed by Sooryavanshi, Yashasvi Jaiswal and Dhruv Jurel.
The only issue that would bother Royals is the form of their skipper Riyan Parag (207 runs from 10 games at a strike rate of 143). Recently named captain of the India A team for a List A tri-nation series, the player from Assam has not been able to prove his detractors wrong that his selection has been purely based on merit.
Royals’ bowling attack has no such problems, with Jofra Archer possessing the ability to put any batting line-up under pressure.
Save for KL Rahul, who is class apart, the likes of Nitish Rana and Sameer Rizvi are expected to struggle big time against raw pace and bounce with distinct lack of technique and temperament to deal with quality international bowling.
Squads
Delhi Capitals: Axar Patel (captain), KL Rahul (wk), Pathum Nissanka, David Miller, Tristan Stubbs, Abhishek Porel (wk), Sameer Rizvi, Nitish Rana, Madhav Tiwari, Kuldeep Yadav, Vipraj Nigam, T Natarajan, Mitchell Starc, Lungi Ngidi, Kyle Jamieson, Dushmantha Chameera, Auqib Nabi, Karun Nair, Ashutosh Sharma, Sahil Parakh, Prithvi Shaw, Tripurana Vijay, Rehan Ahmed, Ajay Mandal.
Rajasthan Royals: Riyan Parag (captain), Yashasvi Jaiswal, Vaibhav Sooryavanshi, Dhruv Jurel (wk), Jofra Archer, Nandre Burger, Yashraj Punja, Donovan Ferreira, Shimron Hetmyer, Shubham Dubey, Aman Rao, Lhuan dre Pretorious, Ravi Singh, Ravindra Jadeja, Dasun Shanaka, Brijesh Sharma, Tushar Deshpande, Kwena Maphaka, Ravi Bishnoi, Yudhvir Singh, Sandeep Sharma, Sushant Mishra, Adam Milne, Vignesh Puthur, Adam Milne, Kuldeep Sen. (PTI)
