Delhi Daredevils vs Royal Challengers Bangalore Preview and Score

Delhi Daredevils vs Royal Challengers Bangalore Preview and Score

After lacklustre starts to the tournament, both Delhi Daredevils and Royal Challengers Bangalore have taken bold steps to try to improve their fortunes; for each of them, the moves worked in their last games. The newly-prepared green top at the Feroz Shah Kotla allowed Virender Sehwag and David Warner to play their strokes, as the ball came on to the bat, and the Delhi fast bowlers enjoyed the bounce they got from the track.

For Bangalore, the shot in the arm came in the form of new signing Chris Gayle, whose century helped turn around a trend that had seen Bangalore not manage an opening stand of more than seven in their previous four matches.

The switch from the traditional slow-and-low Kotla wicket to a livelier one makes sense for Delhi, since all their foreign players are either Australian or South African - and therefore used to bouncy tracks - while their most-expensive player, Irfan Pathan, is a seamer. Tuesday's match will be a test of whether the win against Kings XI Punjab was a one-off or whether their strategy to pack the side with seamers for home games can be a consistently successful one.

From Bangalore's point of view, they will want to make as much use of their new opening partnership before Tillakaratne Dilshan leaves for England, which could be as early as May 10.

Adding further interest is the fact that Bangalore snapped up four of Delhi's foreign stars from last year in the January auction. "Old Delhi v New Delhi," Delhi coach Greg Shipperd dubbed the contest, though with several players changing teams in the rejigging, former team-mates clashing is not uncommon.

Apart from the fluidity of players' loyalties, the other salient feature of the IPL tomorrow's match exposes is its innate forgivingness. In many other sporting leagues Delhi and Bangalore's starts of three losses in their first four games may have seen heads roll at the franchises. But because of the congested nature of the IPL table, both teams find themselves in a position where a single win will put them right back in contention for the knockout stages.

Source : www.espncricinfo.com

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