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IPL 2021 | RR vs DC: Depleted Royals run into roaring Capitals in battle of young Indian captains

Mayank Kumar

The Delhi Capitals and the Rajasthan Royals will hardly share any sort of good things with each other when it comes to their opening games in the 14th edition of the Indian Premier League. 

The capitals started their campaign on a high by thumping the Chennai Super Kings in their last game while the Royals have had to engulf a hurting loss after their new skipper drove them all the way through, almost.

Instead, what they will share commonly will be the adversity of missing some of their best players who have been the strengths of the team over the last few seasons. 

The Royals were already missing Jofra Archer—their Most Valuable Player from the last seasons, and now they are set to miss their most important member in Ben Stokes, who has been ruled out of the tournament due to a broken finger.

The Capitals have their share of problems as well with the full-time skipper Shreyas Iyer not starting the tournament along with the South African fast bowling duo of Kagiso Rabada and Anrich Nortje. Reportedly, Nortje has tested positive for the dreaded novel coronavirus and will miss the game against the Royals as well.

Who will gain from Ben Stokes’ pain?

Ben Stokes’ injury will be an excruciating blow to the Royals’ chances in the 14th edition of the league, but it also opens up winds of opportunity for the players such as Liam Livingstone, and David Miller would have struggled to find a place in an all-strength team.

The Royals will have to do a lot of rejigging in the team balance and hence a window can be opened for at least either of them for the coming games tarting the one against the Delhi Capitals.

Miller has a lot to offer to the Royals in terms of experience, while Livingstone will bring a lot of firepower at the top of the order in the absence of Stokes.

The jury’s out on Chris Morris, Mustafizur

Chris Morris was snapped up by the Royals in the auction held earlier this year for his exploits with the ball, especially in the later phase of the game, and batting at the lower order.

However, he made a pretty inauspicious start to the campaign with the Royals and conceded a lot of runs against the Punjab Kings. The story was somewhat similar for Mustafizur Rahman, who is appearing to be losing grasp on his variations and also suffering at the hands of intelligent batsmen against him.

Now, in the absence of both Archer and Stokes, the Royals would be banking upon every wheel of the motor if they have to stand any chance of making it to the playoffs.

Can Prithvi continue his ‘Shaw’?

Prithvi Shaw was the opening batsman to start off the campaign last year as well and he was dominating from the outset. He promised a lot of runs and more intent at the top of the order but only to be a repetitive failure and subsequently going out of the playing XI.

He has seen a serious rough patch starting the last edition of the IPL and life is coming to full circle for the Mumbai lad as he has started to score all those runs, with all the same intent he has been threatening to do for the last couple of seasons.

He started off the IPL 2021 campaign on a dominating note against the Chennai Super Kings and would be eager to show the world that his methods can be consistent as well, apart from having a lot of firepowers. 

Rajasthan Royals vs Delhi Capitals: Match Details

Match Number-07

Date and Time: April 15, 07:30 pm IST, 02: 00 pm GMT

Venue: Wankhede Stadium

Broadcast and Live Stream; Star Sports and Hotstar

Pitch and Weather

Both the games played at the venue this season have turned out to be high-scoring ones with batsmen finding it easy to hit through the line of the ball. The surfaces have offered pace but it has done far too little for the bowlers and instead batsmen have made merry.

However, the early start at 7.30 PM IST and the first half an hour of the game has been flagged by the CSK skipper MS Dhoni as the phase where the pitch behaves differently than the other phases of the game. 

In the last game the Capitals played at the Wankhede, both Avesh Khan and Woakes got some assistance both in the air and off the pitch with the new Kookaburra ball. 

The trend is likely to continue and Pant would be banking on Rabada to do the damage with the new ball.

The weather condition in Mumbai during the game is likely to be a pleasant one for the players with the temperature hovering around the 27-degree mark. There is no chance of rain in the city and fans would be hoping for a crackerjack of a contest between the sides captained by young Indian talents.

Team News

Rajasthan Royals

The Royals are certain to make an enforced change in the wake of the hand injury to Ben Stokes and one of Livingstone and Miller is certain to come into the playing XI for the game against the Capitals.

Stokes had bowled only over in the game before getting injured and Samson will have to take a call on if he wants to use Riyan Parag and Shivam Dube to fill in as the sixth and the seventh bowling options.

Jos Buttler, who batted at the number four position in the last game against the Punjab Kings is set to come back to the top of the order with Manan Vohra, while Livingston.

Strongest XI

Manan Vohra, Jos Buttler, Sanju Samson (c & wk), Liam Livingstone, Riyan Parag, Shivam Dube, Rahul Tewatia, Chris Morris, Shreyas Gopal, Chetan Sakariya, Mustafizur Rahman

Delhi Capitals

The English pair of Chris Woakes and Tom Curran was assigned the task of pace bowling by the Capitals as their talismanic pair of Rabada and Nortje were late to join the squad. 

With Nortje set to sit out for a long time, the Capitals will have a tough call to take on who among Woakes and Curran will make way for the returning Rabada.

Woakes is an all-rounder who can provide flourish with the bat in the last few overs and it would work completely to his advantage as the Capitals would be looking to have depth in batting with the approach they have batted in the last game.


Strongest XI

Shikhar Dhawan, Prithvi Shaw, Ajinkya Rahane, Rishabh Pant (c & wk), Marcus Stoinis, Shimron Hetmyer, Chris Woakes, Ravichandran Ashwin, Kagiso Rabada, Amit Mishra, Avesh Khan

RR vs DC: Dream XI/Fantasy XI

Sanju Samson, Rishabh Pant, Shikhar Dhawan, Liam Livingstone, Chris Morris, Marcus Stoinis, Kagiso Rabada, Mustafizur Rahman, Chetan Sakariya

Captain: Jos Buttler

Vice-captain: Prithvi Shaw

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