New Delhi – The IPL bandwagon arrives in Delhi for the first time in 2017 as the Delhi Daredevils take on Kings XI Punjab later in the day.

The Delhi Daredevils have one win from two outings, while their opponents Kings XI Punjab have two wins from three matches. In their most-recent match Sanju Samson’s ton, the first of IPL 2017, powered the Daredevils to an emphatic 97-run win over Rising Pune Supergiant. Zaheer Khan’s young team will take plenty of confidence from that win and look to notch a second win when they play their first home fixture of the season. At the start of the season, an inexperienced batting line-up was pointed to be DD’s weakness; yet, true to the motto of the IPL, “where talent meets opportunity”, it has been heartening to see a talented youngster like Sanju Samson rise to the occasion and deliver on the grand stage. DD could make a change or two to the XI that did duty in the last match; apart from Shreyas Iyer, who has recovered from the illness that made him unavailable for the first two weeks, Jayant Yadav and Mohammed Shami too stand a chance of getting their first match of the season.

Kings XI Punjab must be disappointed with their performance against Kolkata Knight Riders on Thursday night. At one stage in the innings they looked good to post a total around 200, but eventually ended up with 170. In the run-chase they were caught unawares and were blown away by the opening batsman Sunil Narine. Prior to the defeat against KKR, KXIP had two convincing wins; they chased down 164 and 149 against RPS and RCB respectively, losing a total of six wickets in both those run-chases. KXIP will need to bring in more match awareness and react quicker in the field, quicker than they did against KKR the other night, if and when they are challenged.

KXIP obviously prefer chasing; they have a hundred percent record in run-chases this season. It will be interesting to see what Glenn Maxwell will do if he calls correctly at the coin toss.

There will be many more eyes following Sanju Samson, after his hundred on Tuesday. There will be a degree of curiosity to see if that knock was a flash-in-the-pan performance, or if the youngster can start stitching together consistent performances. Rishabh Pant is another youngster one should keep a close watch on; being a local lad, the teenager will be keen to make a significant contribution to his team and entertain his home crowd. In the KXIP line-up, Manan Vohra is playing fearless cricket; the youngster has got starts in each of the three matches but is yet to score more than 34. He needs to make a significant score. Maxwell and Miller (KXIP) have proven credentials, having caused plenty of damage at the highest level; they are the most important names in the KXIP batting line-up.

(Courtesy: ipl.com)