
Big picture – Rahul, Pant, and points to prove
The IPL has always had players facing their former teams, but this season, there’s an added sort of spice to these contests.
Looking at that, this could well be a contest between LSG’s batting and DC’s bowling.
Pant has played all 111 of his IPL games for DC after starting in 2016, and on Monday, he will face them for the first time. Rahul, who led LSG to back-to-back playoffs, now has a chance to make a statement with the bat, continuing the aggressive brand of cricket he played in India’s Champions Trophy glory run.
Team news and likely XIIs
Delhi Capitals (probable): 1 Jake Fraser-McGurk, 2 Faf du Plessis, 3 Abishek Porel, 4 KL Rahul (wk), 4 5 Tristan Stubbs, 6 Axar Patel (capt), 7 Ashutosh Sharma, 8 Sameer Rizvi/Mohit Sharma, 9 Kuldeep Yadav, 10 Mitchell Starc, 11 T Natarajan, 12 Mukesh Kumar
Lucknow Super Giants (probable): 1 Yuvraj Chaudhary, 2 Mitchell Marsh, 3 Rishabh Pant (capt, wk), 4 Nicholas Pooran, 5 Ayush Badoni, 6 David Miller, 7 Abdul Samad, 8 Shahbaz Ahmed, 9 Rajvardhan Hangargekar, 10 Ravi Bishnoi, 11 Shamar Joseph, 12 Prince Yadav
In the spotlight: Axar Patel and Shardul Thakur
Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) shellacked 272 here last year, an IPL record at the time. In 19 games at the Andhra Premier League in August, 200 was crossed just once. But that shouldn’t be the barometer to gauge the surface, for the quality of players is vastly different. In all T20s in Visakhapatnam, runs have been scored at 9.2 an over, the third-highest among all Indian venues behind Hyderabad (9.7) and Bengaluru (9.2).
DC are set for a prolonged stay in Visakhapatnam, where they will next play Sunrisers Hyderabad (SRH) on March 30 – a game that will test crowd loyalty, considering local boy Nitish Kumar Reddy will play for the “away” team. Their third game will be against Chennai Super Kings (CSK) in Chennai.
After Monday, LSG make a quick hop across to Hyderabad to play SRH on March 27, before going home to Lucknow for their first home game, against Punjab Kings (PBKS).