Priyam Garg to continue, Prithvi Shaw to be benched again: DC’s likely XI vs GT in IPL 2023

DC head coach Ricky Ponting has recently said that Shaw has not been good enough this season and currently the team is better off without him.

Bottom of the table Delhi Capitals (DC) take on the defending champions Gujarat Titans (GT) at the Narendra Modi Stadium in Ahmedabad on May 2. DC lost their last game to SRH in Delhi and are firmly rooted to the bottom of the table with their playoff hopes all but gone. They would need to run of victories to just make it off the bottom of the table let alone the playoffs.

IPL 2023: Priyam Garg during a Delhi Capitals training session.

David Warner’s men were on the up and were slowly building momentum before the loss to SRH. Batting is still a big weakness for DC but their bowlers have improved in the last few games and ensured a couple of victories for them. Less than a week ago DC and SRH locked horns in Hyderabad and DC came out on top. But in the reverse fixture in Delhi, the DC bowlers were hit all over the park as SRH scored 197/6. Phil Salt, Mitch Marsh and Axar Patel did their best for DC but the other batters did not contribute enough and DC fell short of the target by 9 runs, their sixth loss in eight games this season.

So far this season DC have lost to LSG, GT, RR, MI and RCB. They finally got their first win of the season against KKR in Delhi after five consecutive losses. Which was then followed by the double header against SRH.

Batting is still a worry for the side from the capital. DC have lost wickets in clumps in all of their games so far and their middle-order has seemed extremely fragile and vulnerable all season. This was once again evident in the loss to SRH as DC slipped from 112/1 to 148/6.

Warner is one of the leading run-scorers this season with 306 runs with four half-centuries but his strike rate of 119 is a concern. He has been struggling to score runs at rapid rate and the team losing wickets in heaps around him has not helped his cause.

Prithvi Shaw has had a woeful season so far. He has only scored 47 runs so far this season. Head coach Ricky Ponting has recently said that Shaw has not been good enough this season and currently the team is better off without him. Sarfaraz has once again failed to deliver on his promising domestic form and is running out of time to realise his potential. Marsh and Salt both scored their first half-centuries of the season against SRH in the last game and DC were on their way to chase down the score but once again the domestic middle order batters let the team down. Axar Patel has so far scored 211 runs this season. He is the only other batter to have made a notable contribution to the team's batting efforts other than skipper Warner.

Axar Patel and Kuldeep Yadav have both picked up 7 wickets this season at an economy of seven. Marsh has also contributed with seven scalps after his four wickets against SRH. Nortje has picked up six and Mukesh Kumar has picked up five wickets so far but he has conceded more than ten runs an over. Garg is expected to continue in the side after coming in against SRH. Lalit Yadav could come into the side for Ripal Patel and Aman Khan could come in for Sarfaraz.

Yash Dhull, Prithvi Shaw, Pravin Dubey, Chetan Sakariya and Khaleel Ahmed are all Impact player options for DC.

Here’s DC likely XI vs GT:

Openers: David Warner (c), Phil Salt (wk).

Middle Order: Aman Khan, Priyam Garg, Manish Pandey.

All-Rounders: Axar Patel, Lalit Yadav, Mitch Marsh.

Bowlers: Kuldeep Yadav, Anrich Nortje, Mukesh Kumar.

Impact Player

DC could use Yash Dhull, Prithvi Shaw, Pravin Dubey, Chetan Sakariya and Khaleel Ahmed for their Impact Player options.