The Hindu : Sport / Cricket : Can Daredevils check the rampaging Chargers?

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Thursday, Apr 30, 2009
ePaper | Mobile/PDA Version

Sport

Sport - Cricket

Can Daredevils check the rampaging Chargers?

Daredevils’ pace attack has sorely missed McGrath
Laxman’s poor form the only concern for Chargers

— Photo: AFP

TIME TO CLICK: Delhi Daredevils’ batting fortunes would improve if Virender Sehwag and Gautam Gambhir come out of their slump.

Pretoria: On a roll with four wins in as many matches, the all-conquering Deccan Chargers will look to extend its unbeaten spree, while Delhi Daredevils will hope to shrug off the losses on Tuesday when the two meet in their Indian Premier League match here on Thursday.

Tagged as laggards last year, Chargers has started this edition on a resounding note by beating Kolkata Knight Riders, Royal Challenger Bangalore, Mumbai Indians and Chennai Super Kings and is looking unstoppable.

Explosive starts

South African Herschelle Gibbs and skipper Adam Gilchrist, who have been in ominous form, have just blown away any opponent’s strategy with their power-packed batting and are among the top run-getters in the tournament.

Rohit Sharma also has been in good form and the only chink in the batting is an out-of-form V.V.S. Laxman. Gilchrist would hope that the former skipper will make himself counted in Thursday’s tie.

R.P. Singh, Ojha successful

The Chargers’ bowling has been equally good with R.P. Singh leading the pack with nine wickets and Pragyan Ojha has made batsmen dance to his tune to bag eight wickets so far.

West Indian Fidel Edward has also done a good job with part-timers like Rohit Sharma and Venugopal Rao also chipping in nicely.

Daredevils, nursing its defeat against Rajasthan Royals, had made a good start to its campaign with successive wins against Kings XI Punjab, Super Kings and Royal Challengers.

The celebrated opening pair of Gautam Gambhir and Virender Sehwag has failed to make any noise and the onus would be on the star players to provide a blistering start if they have any hopes of stopping their rival’s juggernaut.

South African A.B. de Villiers and Tillakaratne Dilshan of Sri Lanka have done bulk of the scoring for the Daredevils with the former hitting the only century of this edition of the IPL.

Lacking teeth

In the bowling department, though Delhi has depended on the services of Dirk Nannes, Ashish Nehra and Pradeep Sangwan, its pace attack has lacked teeth without the experience of legendary seamer Glenn McGrath.

Among spinners, Daniel Vettori has been successful, barring Tuesday’s thrashing which he would like to forget, and Amit Mishra has shown glimpses of what he is capable of. — PTI

Printer friendly page
Send this article to Friends by E-Mail

Sport