Daredevils, Royal Challengers in virtual knockout game

Perhaps the first time ever six of the eight teams are still in with a chance to make the playoffs. Sunday’s game between the two sides, in that sense, may well be a knockout game for both teams that are tied on points (14) but with RCB ahead on net run rate.

The chink in RCB’s armour has been the ordinary form of the rest of its players barring Kohli, De Villiers and Shane Watson and Delhi would be looking to exploit that weakness.

Few hours before its match against Delhi Daredevils here on Friday, two foreign players from Sunrisers Hyderabad walked into a mall for a bite. Surrounded by a posse of policemen, the two were mobbed by the crowd even though most of those present had no clue to their identity.

Given this level of fascination with cricketers, it is easy to imagine the kind of frenzy Virat Kohli or AB de Villiers inspired among the public when they landed up in the city for theirs and the league stage’s final match to be played here against Delhi Daredevils on Sunday.

For a city starved of big-ticket international cricket, the occasional IPL games are a time to celebrate. And with Delhi performing better than any time in the last few seasons, the host has given its supporters reasons to cheer.

Perhaps the first time ever six of the eight teams are still in with a chance to make the playoffs. Sunday’s game between the two sides, in that sense, may well be a knockout game for both teams that are tied on points (14) but with RCB ahead on net run rate.

That NRR is thanks mainly to the run machine that RCB has become in the last few games, powered by the superhuman heroics of Kohli and, to an extent, De Villiers. The world in general and cricket in particular is in awe of Kohli, who has now hit four IPL centuries so far this season — one of them coming in a rain-curtailed 15-over game.

The RCB captain has been demolishing teams, reputations and spirits with a panache that only makes him more dangerous. The team has won four of its last five games to jump from strugglers in the bottom half and join the lead pack.

The chink in RCB’s armour has been the ordinary form of the rest of its players barring Kohli, De Villiers and Shane Watson. Delhi would be predictably wary of RCB batting but it would also be hoping its own batters come good the way they did in the previous game between the two sides that Delhi won by seven wickets.

By their own volition, that was the team’s best batting performance in the competition so far with Quinton de Kock getting a century and Karun Nair his first of seven fifties.

Nair is one of only three players — Amit Mishra and Sanju Samson being the other two — to have played all of Daredevils’ thirteen matches, which becomes important in the context of the 33 changes made to its playing XI under its mercurial selection policy.

It is the bowling that would be concern for both sides and Delhi would want to improve on its performance from the previous game where its bowlers could not restrict the runs despite regular wickets. Going by the way Kohli & Co. have been doing recently, it would be a tall order for the host. But if anyone could do it, Delhi could.