The Rajasthan Royals snatched a well fought game against the Mumbai Indians in a thriller that went down to the last ball. Although the Royals had already confirmed their semi-finals spot, the Mumbai Indians needed to win this match desperately to have a good chance in securing a place in the semis. Not only have the Mumbai Indians been denied the two important points they needed, they have also been left at the mercy of the Chennai Super Kings who play Hyderabad Decaan Chargers tomorrow. If the Deccan Chargers win, they will proceed to the semis but if they lose, Mumbai will need to win their next game to advance.
However, Mumbai losing today means the Delhi Daredevils have secured a place in the semi-finals and so the Delhi-ites have a reason to party for the next couple of days.
Delhi Daredevils will look to take revenge as well as alive their chances of making it to the last four when they will take on Kolkata Knight Riders at Feroz Shah Kotla stadium in the 47th match of IPL twenty20.
So far only two teams has cemented their place in the last four and the battle for third and fourth place is now open after the loss of Chennai Super Kings against Royal Challengers Bangalore and Mumbai Indians loss against Kings XI Punjab.
Kolkata Knight Riders chances of making into the semi finals is difficult but not impossible, if they were able to win their remaining matches and if others team lost their remaining matches then they will still go through. However first they must win their matches to give them outside chance to making it to the Semi Finals.
Delhi Daredevils have two dashing openers and they are in prime form so once again all depends on how V. Sehwag and G. Gambhir will play. Since we have seen whenever these two failed to deliver Delhi Daredevils have lost the match. On the other hand Kolkata Knight Riders has big problem at their top orders and they didn’t get the start they were looking for and in the end they fall short by 15-20 runs from setting a winning target.
The game is a do or die encounter for both the Daredevils and the Knight Riders. But the frustrated things is both teams may have to share points due to rain around in Delhi. In the case of a washout Delhi will have to share a point with Kolkata and that will adversely effect their chances in the tournament. Then Delhi will have to win their last game against Mumbai Indians but even so their fate will depend on the other results in the tournament.
So they must get solid start in the today’s crucial match if they would like to challenge the fire power of Delhi batting lineups.
Player to Watch
G. Gambhir and Virendra Sehwag: Both openers are in prime form and if they able to stay for 7-10 overs at the crease then they can able to easily achieve the win for his team which we have already seen in the last match against Royal Challengers Bangalore.
Shoaib Akhtar: Last time when these two teams mate Shoaib was on fire, he bowled a match winning spell to shatter the Delhi Daredevils batting lineups. So we can expect something like that from him in today’s crunch encounter.
Pitch Report
So far at Feroz Shah Kotla we have seen high scoring game in every match played here, so it will be no surprise if we see another 180 plus score for today’s game. Any team batting first would like to post 180 plus score to challenge the opposition.
Team News
Delhi Daredevils will most likely bring A.Mishra for today’s game in place of P.Sangwan since he has taken hat-trick against Deccan Chargers in the same ground. On the other hand Kolkata Knight Riders will also likely to make few changes by bringing S.Akhtar in place of A.Agarkar and C.Pujara in place of Md. Hafeez.
Delhi Daredevils (probables): Virender Sehwag (capt), Gautam Gambhir, Shikhar Dhawan, Shoaib Malik, Dinesh Karthik (wk), Tillakaratne Dilshan, Farveez Maharoof, Rajat Bhatia, Amit Mishra, Yo Mahesh, Glenn McGrath
Kolkata Knight Riders (probables): Salman Butt, Debabrata Das, Sourav Ganguly (capt), David Hussey, Laxmi Ratan Shukla, Wriddhiman Saha, Ajit Agarkar, Ajantha Mendis, Ishant Sharma, Siddarth Kaul, Umar Gul
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