By Prakash Nair 
Lucknow, April 1: There is something almost cruel about the fixture list sometimes. Of all the teams to open your campaign against, Lucknow Super Giants LSG get Delhi Capitals DC the one side that has beaten them every single time they have met. Four games. Four losses. All of them, in one way or another, feeling like they were within reach.
Tonight at the Ekana Stadium, under the lights, that changes. Or it does not. That is kind of the whole point.
Same Problem, Different Jersey
Both these teams finished last season staring at the same wall. Delhi started IPL 2025 like a house on fire five wins in their first six games and then ran out of steam so completely that by the final weeks, they were practically spectators. Lucknow did the same thing in reverse. They won four early, then lost the plot entirely and finished seventh. Seventh. For a team with that batting line-up, that is not a bad run of form. That is something structural.
So when people say this match is a fresh start, they are right. They are also glossing over the fact that both teams have questions they have not answered yet.
Pant Needs This
Rishabh Pant’s first year as LSG captain. It did not go well. Not badly enough to write him off nothing about Pant is ever that straightforward but the version of him that turned up in IPL 2025 was not the Pant that Chennai used to dread, or the one who hit Boult for six over long-on like it was a practice net.
He looked, at times, like a man carrying the captaincy rather than wearing it. Overthinking field placements. Hesitant with his batting positions. The fire was there in bursts, but it never really took hold for a full innings.
Home game tonight. Full crowd. Justin Langer is in his corner, a coach who has been dealing with pressure for thirty years and is not about to panic now. Pant feeds off energy. If Lucknow can get on top early, this could finally be the night he reminds everyone what he is actually capable of.
There is one awkward subplot, though. Kuldeep Yadav his former Delhi teammate, someone who knows his game intimately has gotten him out three times in five innings. Pant has scored just 23 runs against him in 25 balls. For a batter of his calibre, that is a remarkably poor record. If Kuldeep gets the ball at the right moment tonight, that middle-over battle could decide the game.
The Bowling Attack That Could Finally Do the Business
The real news out of the Lucknow camp this week is not the batting. It is the pace attack, which for once is actually available.
Mohammed Shami is fit. Anrich Nortje is in the squad. And Mayank Yadav the young quick who genuinely touched 155 kph in IPL 2024 and then spent nearly two full seasons in and out of physio rooms has finally been cleared to play. That is a serious bowling lineup. Shami in the powerplay, Mayank in the middle, Nortje at the death. On a red-soil Ekana pitch that tends to offer something to pace bowlers, that combination could be genuinely difficult to bat against.
The one gap is Wanindu Hasaranga, who has not yet cleared a fitness test with Sri Lanka Cricket and will miss tonight. He would have been useful bits of runs, bits of wickets, someone to turn to when things get tight in the 12th over. Lucknow will manage without him, but it is the kind of absence that could cost them two or three crucial overs if Delhi’s middle order gets set.
Delhi Are Dangerous, Even Without Starc
Mitchell Starc is not playing. That is a significant blow for DC they paid INR 11.75 crore to retain him, and he is sitting this one out with a shoulder and elbow injury. For a team whose pace attack was always going to hinge on his new-ball threat, losing him early is not ideal.
Still. This Delhi side is not dependent on one player.
KL Rahul at the top is one of the safest hands in the tournament right now. He was Delhi’s highest run-scorer last season and has been in consistently good touch across formats. He will open tonight, likely alongside Pathum Nissanka, and his contest with Shami in the first three overs is worth the price of admission on its own. In five IPL innings against Shami, Rahul has scored 43 runs and been dismissed twice. There is a slight stiffness Shami brings out of him a reluctance to commit to the short ball. Neither man dominates the other, which makes it interesting.
The middle order is where Delhi genuinely excite. Tristan Stubbs is one of the cleanest hitters of the ball in the tournament. David Miller has been scoring match-winning cameos in T20 cricket for fifteen years and shows no signs of stopping. And Axar himself, as captain, bats with more freedom than people expect. Against Lucknow specifically, he averages over 25 at a strike rate above 168. He is not a passenger in that lineup. He is a match-winner.
Kuldeep and Axar together will run the spin operation in the middle overs. On a pitch that traditionally helps wrist-spin and off-spin from around the 10th over, that duo could strangle LSG’s innings if the powerplay goes Delhi’s way.
Watch Nicholas Pooran Carefully
It gets overlooked in all the talk about Pant and the bowling attack, but Nicholas Pooran against Delhi is a different animal. In five innings against the Capitals, he has scored 181 runs at a strike rate of 215. Two fifties. He tends to come in around the 7th or 8th over, assess for about four balls, and then detonate. If Delhi’s bowlers do not have a specific plan for him tonight, those final five overs could get very expensive, very fast.
The Pitch, The Weather, The Numbers
Ekana is an interesting venue. Two types of soil black and red which means pitches vary game to game. On average over the last two IPL seasons, first-innings totals here have sat around 180 to 187. Chasing sides have won 12 of 22 games at this ground, so the toss matters. Whichever captain wins it tonight is almost certainly bowling first.
Weather is not a factor. Twenty-eight degrees, no cloud cover, no rain. Both sets of players will be fully prepared and fully fit or as close to it as either side can manage.
What Tonight Actually Means
For all the talk of fresh starts and redemption arcs, this is Match 5 of a long tournament. No crisis if you lose. No trophy if you win. What tonight means, in real terms, is momentum. Confidence. A dressing room that walks into the next game feeling like it has found something.
For Rishabh Pant, it means more than that. He is one of the most watched cricketers in the country right now and he knows it. His team is watching him. The Lucknow crowd is watching him. They do not need a press conference quote or a training ground cameo. They need to see 25 minutes of Pant being Pant taking the game by the scruff and refusing to let go.
Delhi come in as the favourites on paper. Head-to-head record, quality of their spin attack on this surface, the experience in this fixture it all leans their way. But cricket has a long and happy history of ignoring paper.
The floodlights go on at 7:30. The rest is up to the eleven who walk out.
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- Prakash Nair
- Prakash Nair
- Prakash Nair
- Prakash Nair
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