Kings XI Punjab take on Delhi Daredevils in what promises to be an exciting clash between two teams from the north of the country that enjoy passionate support despite being under-performers for much of the history of the IPL. Will this IPL 2017 be any different?
So far Kings XI Punjab stand fourth in the competition having lost to Kolkata Knight Riders by 8 wickets, beaten Royal Challengers Bangalore by 8 wickets and Rising Pune Supergiant by 6 wickets. They have started well in IPL 2017, something we have not seen them do for long. Obviously, the new captain Glenn Maxwell has done well for them so far.
Delhi Daredevils are fifth in the IPL. They have so far beaten Rising Pune Supergiant by 97 runs and have lost to RCB by 15 runs. Rahul Dravid is the coach of this team, and as you would expect with Dravid, he has built a team of youngsters led by the veteran Indian fast bowling great, Zaheer Khan.
The last match against Pune was an exciting one for Delhi Daredevils. They won the game by a huge margin, the biggest in their history. This was largely because of the superlative efforts of young Sanju Samson. Samson is only 22 years old and along with his teammate Rishabh Pant, is talked about as the next big thing for Indian cricket.
Speaking to the media after his brilliant hundred in the match, Samson said that he was grateful to his coach Rahul Dravid. He said in the post-match press conference, “I am very happy about this day. It’s one of the special days of my life. Every cricketer here in India, his dream is to play for Indian team, which is the world’s best cricket team. So if you want to get into it, you have to be something special, you have to do something special. So I’m happy that I played one innings but there’s a long way to go.”
He spoke at length about the contribution made by his coach Rahul Dravid: “I think Rahul Dravid, Zubin Bharucha, Paddy Upton and each member of the team who has supported me throughout. Last IPL season was not a great season for me, but they supported me throughout and I dedicate this knock to them. I was 17 when I was with the Rajasthan Royals and since then I have been working with Dravid and feel very blessed to be learning under his guidance. Not too many people get this chance and I feel I am extremely lucky to have him around and guide me.”
Samson has been criticised for his lack of discipline in the past. He said that he had learned his lessons: “You need to have bad times to learn what life is about, I think. If you keep on achieving success, I think, you do not learn. If you do mistakes in cricket, or if you do mistakes in life, you learn from it and you become a better person. I think my past has helped me become a better cricketer and a better human being.”
For this match, we expect Shreyas Iyer to feature for the Delhi team in place of Aditya Tare who has had a poor season so far. It is expected to be a good clash between two evenly matched teams with big ambitions for this IPL 2017.
The Teams
Kings XI Punjab: 1 Hashim Amla, 2 Manan Vohra, 3 Wriddhiman Saha (wk), 4 Glenn Maxwell (capt), 5 David Miller, 6 Marcus Stoinis, 7 Axar Patel, 8 Mohit Sharma, 9 Sandeep Sharma, 10 Varun Aaron, 11 Ishant Sharma
Delhi Daredevils: 1 Aditya Tare/ Shreyas Iyer, 2 Sam Billings, 3 Karun Nair, 4 Sanju Samson, 5 Rishabh Pant (wk), 6 Chris Morris, 7 Corey Anderson, 8 Pat Cummins, 9 Amit Mishra, 10 Shahbaz Nadeem, 11 Zaheer Khan (capt)
Watch Kings XI Punjab take on Delhi Daredevils tonight at 8 PM on Sony Six!
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