DC vs KKR, IPL 2023 highlights: Delhi beat Kolkata by by four wickets

The inspection was initially scheduled for 7pm but it has now been rescheduled to 7.15pm. Sit tight with crossed fingers. 

Parts of the city has received some respite from the scorching April heat today due to the rain but it's not exactly good news for cricket. For now no big updates from the ground as to when toss will take place. 

This is what Aaron Finch had to say about the pitch: “Looks like a very good surface, it's a bit dry underneath. There shouldn't be a huge amount of spin, particularly later in the day. The ball can swing a little early on in the powerplay if it's pitched in the right areas. Once the batters get past those conditions, they can score big.”

The covers are still on at the Arun Jaitley Stadium due to some surprise drizzless. Toss could be slightly delayed today. 

David Warner has 228 runs this season but it has come at a strike rate of just 116.92. But this could be a fixture where he can look to give that rather unflattering statistic a jump, as he strikes at 144.62 against Umesh Yadav, at 153.04 against Sunil Narine and at 218.18 against Andre Russell. Umesh, however, has dismissed him five times in 65 balls.

Since 2019, teams batting second in the IPL have been more successful at the Arun Jaitley Stadium, winning 10 out of 13 games. The weather is expected to be fine for the duration of the game.

KKR have lost most wickets in the powerplay and have not scored a single six in this phase. In fact, so acute have their batting failures been that the next best score in their previous against Mumbai Indians after Venkatesh Iyer's 104 was Andre Russell's 21.

It might be encouraging and concerning at the same time for KKR fans that their only two victories have come thanks to a pair of completely freakish innings. The first one was Shardul Thakur just smashing the living daylights out of the RCB bowlers to score 68 off 29 balls. Then came Rinku Singh helping KKR chase down 29 runs in the last over by smashing five sixes off the last five balls against champions Gujarat Titans. The concerning part would be that KKR have had to depend on these extremeties to take them over the line and even a century wasn't enough in one of the games. 

Venkatesh Iyer has not bowled a single ball this season and he spoke about the fact that the new impact player rule will lead to all-rounders bowling less, as did MS Dhoni earlier in the season. "Honestly, with the coming of the Impact Player rule, the number of overs an all-rounder is bowling has dropped down drastically. Obviously, if a team has a specialist bowler as their sixth bowler and then they don't want to try their all-rounder. This is what the Impact Player rule has brought. It has lessened the utility of all-rounders," he said.  

David Warner has 1018 runs in 26 innings against KKR, at a strike rate of 145.64. Two of Warner's four IPL hundreds have come against them.

Venkatesh Iyer became the first KKR batter since Brendon McCullum in the first ever IPL match to score a century in their previous match. He smashed 104 in 51 balls in a truly sensational display of T20. It is not often that you see centuries in losing causes in T20s but that is exactly what happened as KKR could only score 185/6. Mumbai Indians chased that down with five wickets and 14 balls in hand. 

Yes, DC have been missing some batters this season, even amongst those who are physically present for them but absent in the runs column, but this is about literally missing bats. According to a report in the Indian Express a total of 16 bats, in addition to other equipment like shoes, pads, thigh pads and gloves, were missing fter they returned to Delhi from Bengaluru, where they played RCB on April 15. The players found out about the missing gear after flying back to Delhi on Sunday and having their kits delivered to their team hotel. Talk about a troubled season. 

Rahmanullah Gurbaz(w), N Jagadeesan, Venkatesh Iyer, Nitish Rana(c), Rinku Singh, Andre Russell, Shardul Thakur, Sunil Narine, Umesh Yadav, Lockie Ferguson, Varun Chakaravarthy, Suyash Sharma, Mandeep Singh, Anukul Roy, Vaibhav Arora, David Wiese, Tim Southee, Jason Roy, Litton Das, Kulwant Khejroliya, Harshit Rana, Aarya Desai

David Warner(c), Prithvi Shaw, Mitchell Marsh, Yash Dhull, Manish Pandey, Abishek Porel(w), Axar Patel, Aman Hakim Khan, Lalit Yadav, Anrich Nortje, Kuldeep Yadav, Mustafizur Rahman, Mukesh Kumar, Sarfaraz Khan, Chetan Sakariya, Praveen Dubey, Rilee Rossouw, Rovman Powell, Khaleel Ahmed, Ishant Sharma, Lungi Ngidi, Philip Salt, Kamlesh Nagarkoti, Ripal Patel, Vicky Ostwal

"Teams have come back well from this position before and we can go on and do better," is what David Warner had to say after his team had lost a fifth match on the trot since the start of the season. This edition of the IPL has thus far been an unmitigated disaster for DC. They came into the season not knowing who their wicketkeeper would be, put in what has to be the worst fielding performance of all time in the IPL in their first match of the season and their batting have floundered from one game to the next since. Mitch Marsh and Prithvi Shaw showed a lot of promise before the start of the season but they have fallen flat while David Warner's strike rate is a huge cause of worry. Shaw has got a highest score of 15 this year, for crying out loud. DC have also never played with the same XI even once this season and it is likely that the trend will continue in today's game as well. Let's see how they fair against a KKR side who have had their own fair share of issues.