IPL 2018, Match 26, DD vs KKR, Match Prediction: Who will win the match today, Delhi Daredevils or Kolkata Knight Riders?

The Delhi Daredevils find themselves in a complete mess in the middle of this Indian Premier League (IPL) as not only are they positioned at the bottom of the points table, their captain Gautam Gambhir has all of a sudden stepped down from his position and the young Shreyas Iyer, who doesn’t have too much of captaincy experience, has been given the responsibility of leading the side.

The Kolkata Knight Riders, on the other hand, are more sorted and although they have had a bit of a roller-coaster ride this season as they have won three and lost three out of the 6 games they have played so far. KKR are a strong unit and have enough quality and balance in the squad to make it to the playoffs.

This is the return fixture between these two teams in IPL 11. The first one which was played at the Eden Gardens 10 days back saw KKR totally dominate the visitors and defeat them by a huge margin of 71 runs.

Pitch and Conditions

The wicket at the Feroz Shah Kotla last game was incredibly slow. There was no pace off the surface at all and until and unless the bowlers missed the line and length by a fair margin, the boundaries were hard to come by in both the innings.

The surface demanded crafty batting and only those who were willing to show some patience and hang around for a while got a few runs. The slow wicket at Kotla was, however, not a surprise at all as that’s how the wicket traditionally behaves at this venue. If it’s a similar kind of a wicket again tomorrow which is very much probable, the par score will be somewhere around 155.

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Playing Combination

Delhi Daredevils

Probable Changes – No Change

Delhi tried quite a few new players in the last game and almost all those changes worked. While Avesh Khan and Liam Plunkett bowled with some real pace and venom, the young Prithvi Shaw looked like a million-dollar player during his brief presence at the crease.

Also, the veteran Amit Mishra, who replaced Shahbaz Nadeem, seemed to have found some nice rhythm and delivered a decent spell for Delhi, although he didn’t get any wickets. It’s highly likely that all these 4 players will retain their spots in the XI and it will be an unchanged team taking the field at Kotla tomorrow.

Predicted XI: Gautam Gambhir, Prithvi Shaw, Shreyas Iyer (C), Rishabh Pant (WK), Glenn Maxwell, Daniel Christian, Rahul Tewatia, Liam Plunkett, Amit Mishra, Trent Boult, Avesh Khan

Kolkata Knight Riders

Probable Changes – No Change

Shivam Mavi gave away a few runs in his first spell the other evening at Eden and while some of them came off erratic deliveries, he also induced a few edges with the new ball which unfortunately flew to the boundary and spoiled his bowling figures further. However, he is not in danger of being dropped as he has shown enough promise and skills for the KKR management to give him a consistent run.

Shubman Gill’s batting order however still remains a subject of much debate for KKR. They just don’t seem to be able to fit him in top 4 and he is clearly not giving them the maximum output at 6/7. If they can somehow play him a little up the order, they will benefit more as a side, while it will do a world of good to Gill individually as well.

Predicted XI: Sunil Narine, Chris Lynn, Robin Uthappa, Shubman Gill, Nitish Rana, Dinesh Karthik, Andre Russell, Piyush Chawla, Tom Curran, Kuldeep Yadav, Shivam Mavi

Team Comparison

Delhi went into the game against the Kings XI Punjab with 6 proper bowling options and appeared a really formidable bowling unit. It won’t be a surprise if this combo works well for them going forward, but the real issue at the moment is their batting which is not clicking together. Apart from Rishabh Pant and Shreyas Iyer, nobody has been able to show the consistency with the bat and has been a hit and miss.

KKR has had almost all their batsmen chipping in at some stage of the tourney and they are a more solid batting unit on paper. They have the strike force both at the top and in the lower order and have some class in the middle. Bowling wise also, the quality is present in abundance, but the recent form of the spinners is a bit of a concern for Dinesh Karthik. Two of his gun spinners Sunil Narine and Kuldeep Yadav have been of colour in the last couple of games.

However, all in all, comparing the overall skill-set of the two teams in both the batting and the bowling department, it’s KKR which start the favourites despite it being a home game for Delhi.

Probable Top Performers

Liam Plunkett (Delhi Daredevils), Dinesh Karthik (Kolkata Knight Riders)

Head to Head

Matches – 20, Delhi Daredevils – 7, Kolkata Knight Riders – 13

The timing of the match: 08:00 pm IST

Broadcast Details

TV – Star Sports 1, Star Sports Hindi, Star Sports Select 1

Online – Jio TV, Hotstar

The prediction is for the Kolkata Knight Riders to beat the Delhi Daredevils in this match.