Daredevils, RCB look to end disappointing season on high
Match facts
Delhi Daredevils v Royal Challengers Bangalore
Dehi, May 14, 2017
Start time 2000 local (1430 GMT)
Head to head
Overall: Royal Challengers have an emphatic 12-6 record over Daredevils.
This season: One of Royal Challengers' two wins this season was against Daredevils at the M Chinnaswamy Stadium. Kedar Jadhav's sublime 69 helped the hosts post 157, which, despite Rishabh Pant's 36-ball 57, was 15 runs too much for Daredevils.
In the news
AB de Villiers left for national duty after Royal Challengers' match against Knight Riders last Sunday, and it remains to be seen if Shane Watson, who confessed this season was his poorest at the IPL ever, returns to the XI.
Daredevils included only three overseas players in the side that beat Rising Pune Supergiant, with Shahbaz Nadeem replacing Carlos Brathwaite. Considering Nadeem's tight bowling against them - he took 1 for 21 - at Feroz Shah Kotla on Friday, chances of an unchanged XI for Daredevils are high. Australian fast bowler Ben Hilfenhaus is yet to play a game this season.
The likely XIs
Delhi Daredevils: 1 Sanju Samson, 2 Karun Nair, 3 Shreyas Iyer, 4 Rishabh Pant (wk), 5 Marlon Samuels, 6 Corey Anderson, 7 Pat Cummins, 8 Amit Mishra, 9 Zaheer Khan (capt), 10 Shahbaz Nadeem, 11 Mohammed Shami
Royal Challengers Bangalore: 1 Chris Gayle, 2 Mandeep Singh, 3 Virat Kohli (capt), 4 Shane Watson, 5 Travis Head, 6 Kedar Jadhav (wk), 7 Pawan Negi, 8 S Aravind, 9 Samuel Badree, 10 Aniket Choudhary, 11 Yuzvendra Chahal
Stats that matter
- Royal Challengers are the only team this season to score at a run rate of less than 8.00. Their average partnership of 18.50 runs per wicket is also the poorest among all teams. The second-worst batting average, 23.77, belongs to Daredevils.
- Royal Challengers and Daredevils have been the two least successful teams in the Powerplay this season, having scored at a run rate of 6.90 and 8.23 respectively at the expense of 25 and 24 wickets in that phase. Royal Challengers have also been the slowest in the slog overs - they have scored at a run rate of 8.44 and lost 33 wickets, the joint-most by any team.
- Daredevils' inconsistency this season reflects in their being the only team to score more than 195 runs three times while being bowled out under 70 on two occasions.
- Daredevils have been particularly poor - with both bat and ball - between overs six and 15. They have lost 37 wickets, the second-most by any team, and have played out the most number of dot balls - 268 out of 694 deliveries - in the middle overs. During that period, their bowlers have taken only 24 wickets - only one more than bottom-placed Gujarat Lions.
- Only seven half-centuries have been scored by the top four batsmen in either side, at an average of less than 25 - the lowest among all teams. No other team's top four averages less than 29.
- Royal Challengers' batsmen have been dismissed 53 times for single-digit scores - 15 more than Daredevils. In comparison, Sunrisers Hyderabad have had the least number of such dismissals: only 19 single-digit scores this season.