Big picture
The doughty virus has squeezed through the bio bubble, a player has been hospitalised as a precaution, and the match has been relocated across the expressway from Pune to Mumbai, but the good news is that the match will still be happening. Fingers crossed, for who can forget 2021?
Both Delhi Capitals and Punjab Kings have lost three and won two of their last five matches, and will want to weed out the inconsistency they’ve shown with the tournament nearing its halfway stage. Capitals are in further strife, and not just because their camp has been hit by Covid-19.
So the batting’s okay. But the bowling, apart from Rahul Chahar and Kagiso Rabada, has lacked wicket-taking menace. Arshdeep Singh has been superb at keeping the runs down at the death, but he only has two wickets across phases from 21 overs in six matches. And Odean Smith, on top of not scoring enough runs, is leaking them at 11.86 an over.
Like Capitals, a win for Kings can help them up two places – and three if Royal Challengers lose big to Lucknow Super Giants – at just the right time.
Delhi Capitals: 1 Prithvi Shaw, 2 David Warner, 3 Sarfaraz Khan/Yash Dhull/Tim Seifert, 4 Rishabh Pant (capt & wk), 5 Lalit Yadav, 6 Rovman Powell, 7 Axar Patel, 8 Shardul Thakur, 9 Kuldeep Yadav, 10 Mustafizur Rahman, 11 Khaleel Ahmed
Punjab Kings: 1 Prabhsimran Singh, 2 Shikhar Dhawan (capt), 3 Jonny Bairstow, 4 Liam Livingstone, 5 Jitesh Sharma (wk), 6 Shahrukh Khan, 7 Odean Smith/ Benny Howell/Rishi Dhawan/Raj Bawa, 8 Kagiso Rabada, 9 Rahul Chahar, 10 Vaibhav Arora, 11 Arshdeep Singh