By Prakash Nair 
New Delhi, April 27: The toss is done. Rajat Patidar called it right, and RCB have elected to bowl first at the Arun Jaitley Stadium tonight.
No real surprise there. Evening games in Delhi bring dew, and any captain worth his salt at this ground will tell you that chasing gets easier as the night goes on. The spinners lose their grip, the seamers cannot get the ball to move the way they want, and the batters in the second innings are essentially playing on a completely different surface from the one on which the first innings was played. Patidar knows this. He has made the percentage call.
What it means is that Delhi Capitals will bat first. KL Rahul and Pathum Nissanka will open the innings against one of the better new-ball attacks in this IPL, with Josh Hazlewood likely leading the charge with the fresh ball in hand.
For DC, this is actually not the worst outcome. Their batting is the strongest part of their game and they know it. The Arun Jaitley Stadium has been producing totals above 185 all season. If Rahul gets going tonight, if Nissanka finally converts one of those starts he has been wasting all tournament, and if the middle order does what it is capable of, DC can post a total that puts real pressure on even a side as settled as RCB.
The challenge, as always with this DC side, comes in the second half. Whatever they put up tonight, their bowlers have to defend it. The same bowling group that could not protect 264 against Punjab Kings will need to find something different tonight. If Mitchell Starc is in the playing eleven, this conversation changes. If he is not, the onus falls back on Axar Patel, Kuldeep Yadav, and whoever else Axar backs to share the load.
For RCB, batting second suits their game perfectly. Kohli at the top of a chase, in the form he is in right now, on a ground he has made his own over the years, is precisely the match-up they would have drawn up on a whiteboard. Give him a target. Let him chase. That is when he is most dangerous.
The pitch is expected to play true early. Dew will begin settling in around the midpoint of DC’s innings and will be a significant factor by the time RCB come out to bat.
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- Prakash Nair
- Prakash Nair
- Prakash Nair
- Prakash Nair
