It is done with half of its league-stage commitment in the Indian Premier League. It is sandwiched in the mid-table muddle in the points table. It may have played two of its home games at its adopted base. On Saturday, Delhi Capitals will play its first game at its real home, the Kotla.
While the Capitals head coach Ricky Ponting will be concerned about finding solutions against Sunrisers Hyderabad starring fellow Australians Pat Cummins and Travis Head, Ponting would have had more reason to smile after watching David Warner in full flow during the Capitals’ training at the Arun Jaitley Stadium.
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A swollen left-hand knuckle forced Warner to miss the Capitals’ previous outing in Ahmedabad. The veteran opener tonked throwdown specialists flawlessly to shed all the doubts over his availability for Saturday’s fixture.
While Warner will bolster the Capitals’ batting unit, captain Rishabh Pant will hope that its inconsistent bowling unit contains an on-song Sunrisers’ batting group. The likes of Head, Abhishek Sharma at the top and Heinrich Klaasen in the latter half have been in such a marauding mood that they have erased the highest total in IPL history twice so far.
Just like Pant, the SRH captain Cummins will also hope to find some support from a pace pack that’s yet to deliver. Neither Bhuvneshwar Kumar nor T. Natarajan have been close to their best so far, and they will be hoping to come good.
Should neither bowling attack get its act together, the batting groups will make merry on a small ground, and another run-feast could well be in offing.