Delhi Daredevils and consistency surely go hand-in-hand. It’s just that the nature changes. If last year their first five outings saw four victories, this time they have not been able to steal a single point from as many matches.
For a side that was the first one to seal its play-off berth in 2012, the non-availability of the likes of Kevin Pietersen and Jesse Ryder, bad form of once-feared Virender Sehwag and a shaky batting line-up has contributed in abundance to make them languish at the bottom of the points table.
After all that hard luck, the only ray of hope seems to be the long stretch of home matches, starting with Chennai Super Kings on Thursday. With Pune Warriors, who have accumulated as many points as CSK — four — from six matches, separating Daredevils and the Chennai outfit, the numbers surely don’t make it seem an uphill task for the Delhi bunch.
Even though Mahela Jayawardene’s men haven’t been able to strike gold at Feroze Shah Kotla so far, if they can use the conditions and crowd support to their advantage, they might be able to keep their campaign alive for good.
The stretch sees Daredevils hosting Mumbai Indians this Sunday and Kings XI Punjab two days later, before shifting to Raipur for their home ties against Pune Warriors and Kolkata Knight Riders. And, starting with an inconsistent CSK is the perfect excuse to bring themselves back into the war.
CSK undoubtedly have an unlimited supply of talent at their disposal but having won two of their four matches so far, the two-time champions are yet to pick the pace. From Michael Hussey and Murali Vijay at top to Suresh Raina, Badrinath and skipper MS Dhoni himself in the middle, the visitors’ batting looks as formidable as it gets. Down the order, Ravindra Jadeja has done his work to be worthy of that ‘Sir’ status. Dwayne Bravo and Albie Morkel, apart from taking care of the bowling, are handy bats too and can be trusted to finish the story before Chris Morris and R Ashwin are called upon.
Daredevils have no such line-up to boast of. Apart from Jayawardene and David Warner, who has done well in patches, their batting looks a mere shadow of its 2012 self. Even the other foreign recruits — Johan Botha and Andre Russell — have failed to inspire.
Their bowling is the only positive, with Morne Morkel, Irfan Pathan, Umesh Yadav and Shahabaz Nadeem forcing Royal Challengers Bangalore to wait for victory till Super Over on Tuesday.
If the bowlers can similarly dictate the terms at Kotla against an unsettled CSK, who knows, the betting meters might swing a different way. And, with the visitors complaining of not being given a good pitch to practice on the eve of the match, the hosts might as well give them some more reasons to get upset when they fight it out on the field.
How about a firing Sehwag to start withIJ