Lucknow Super Giants held their nerve in the run chase against Delhi Capitals on Thursday to go to the top of the table alongside Kolkata Knight Riders with three wins in four matches. In a game that swung back and forth incredibly towards the end, we had several burning questions, and here are a few of them.
What makes Prithvi Shaw and David Warner the most dangerous opening pair in IPL 2022?
The final of the Singer Cup on April 7, 1996, saw the opening pair of Sanath Jayasuriya and Romesh Kaluwitharana put up a 70-run opening stand in which Kaluwitharana contributed 0 runs. On the anniversary of the knock, last night, Prithvi Shaw and David Warner did something very similar. At the time of Shaw’s dismissal on 61, the Delhi Capitals total read 67 and Warner was on 4 off 11 balls.
Warner did not add to his score, but the partnership is proof that we might just have the most dangerous opening pair of the season at Delhi Capitals. Among batters to face at least 500 balls in the powerplay in IPL, Prithvi Shaw has the best strike rate (147.68) and David Warner has the third-best average (44.5) among currently active players.
Shaw’s ability to be extremely aggressive in the powerplay complements Warner, who likes to bat deeper into the innings, perfectly well and the template is something several teams could struggle against, particularly because Shaw is excellent against both pace and spin.
How Delhi Capitals erred by using Rovman Powell up the order?
From 67/1 after 7.3 overs following the exhilarating start provided by Prithvi Shaw, there’s no way Delhi Capitals should have ended up with just 149 in 20 overs when they had lost just three wickets during the entire innings. This was the result of a questionable choice in the batting order and some bizarre batting from the fourth-wicket pair.
Rovman Powell, the West Indian hitter, was pushed up the order in the middle overs with a trio of spinners — Ravi Bishnoi, Krunal Pandya, and Krishnappa Gowtham — operating. It was a strange call given that Powell’s strength lies in taking on pacers while here he was asked to handle spin when Delhi Capitals had others in the line-up capable of doing it.
Since 2020, Powell’s strike rate in T20 cricket against pace is almost touching 150 while against spin it drops down to mid-110s. Struggling to cope with Bishnoi’s googlies, Powell was dismissed for three in 10 balls, unsurprisingly falling to the leggie’s impressive googly. At 74/3 in 10.3 overs, Delhi had already undone some of the exceptional work that Shaw produced upfront, but there was more to come.
Why Rishabh Pant needs to change his batting approach?
With captaincy comes great responsibility, they say. And it sadly appears that the free-spirited Rishabh Pant is being weighed down by captaincy at Delhi Capitals. With the team three down and into the second half of the innings, Pant had to push on the accelerator after getting his eye in, but that took quite a few balls.
Delhi Capitals captain Rishabh Pant needs to shed the anchor role he has been playing so far. Image: Sportzpics for IPL
Struggling at 12 off 20 balls, Pant even played out a maiden against Krishnappa Gowtham. While his attacking intent is excellent usually, in the IPL in the last three seasons, the real Rishabh Pant has gone missing. Against the off-spinner, for instance, Pant has the lowest strike rate in IPL since 2020 (84.31) for anyone who has faced 50 balls from them.
Lucknow exploited this weakness to keep him quiet, and it wasn’t until the 16th over that Pant took off. He eventually hit Andrew Tye for two sixes and a four, but only still managed to get his strike rate a shade above 100. Just one boundary came in the final three overs as Delhi Capitals ambled along to a below-par total despite having lost just three wickets and with an in-form Lalit Yadav, the exuberant Axar Patel, and the daring Shardul Thakur yet to bat.
Pant’s batting record has taken a nosedive in the last couple of years and for Delhi Capitals’ own good, he needs to find his mojo and shed the anchor role he has been looking to play in the middle-order.
Did Delhi Capitals miss a trick against Quinton de Kock?
It is fairly obvious that Quinton de Kock hates off-spinners. Since 2020, he has been dismissed six times by off-spinners in the IPL, the most for any batter in the league. Averaging a shade above 20, de Kock only strikes against them at a rate of 99.2, a far cry from the strike rate he maintains against quicks.
Lucknow bowled Lalit Yadav for two overs upfront to de Kock, and in nine deliveries the off-spinner conceded one boundary and 12 runs. At the end of the powerplay, de Kock had raced along to 36 in 24 balls and seemed set for a big knock. It was then that Delhi Capitals could have used Lalit, who had bowled well to de Kock, to contain the left-hander again. But it wasn’t until the 11th over that he was back into the attack with Axar Patel and Kuldeep Yadav being used in tandem.
On his return, Lalit bowled mostly to Evin Lewis and Deepak Hooda and totalled just one ball to de Kock in his final two overs. With a license to kill after the Lalit spell, de Kock went on to smash 27 in his last 15 balls. Had Lalit been used earlier at the start of the powerplay, Delhi might have escaped some of de Kock’s wrath and pushed the LSG’s lower middle-order.
How Kuldeep Yadav completes Delhi Capitals’ perfect bowling department on paper
An in-form Kuldeep Yadav is something quite a few fans wished to see in the last two seasons when he played just five games. This season, Kuldeep has been excellent for Delhi Capitals, daring to flight the ball and keeping the batters guessing. His dismissal of KL Rahul and later Quinton de Kock last night, off slow, loopy deliveries showed how he has returned to his best this year.
In three matches, Kuldeep has six wickets at an average of 13.5, but more importantly, he makes the Delhi bowling attack complete on paper. The bowling line-up they used last night had two right-arm quicks, one left-arm quick, an off-spinner, a slow left-arm orthodox spinner, and a left-arm wrist spinner.
While Thakur, Nortje, Lalit, and Axar can operate in the powerplay, the pair of Kuldeep and Axar alongside Nortje as the enforcer can bowl in the middle overs with Lalit as the matchup bowler. Shardul and Mustafizur fit perfectly into the latter half of the innings with Nortje possibly providing the one over of extra pace. On paper, it’s the perfect T20 bowling attack in terms of variety.
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