IPL 2018 DD vs KKR scores update

Follow Match No.26 of IPL 2018 between DD and KKR here.

IANS

7.40 pm: The toss update is here. KKR have won the toss and decided to have a field. Two changes for Delhi. Colin Munro and Vijay Shankar are back as Daniel Christian and Gautam Gambhir go out. For KKR, Mitchell Johnson is back in place of Tom Curran. Follow the match here with our scorecard. 

7.30 pm: Hello and welcome to Match No.26 of IPL 2018 between Delhi and Kolkata at the Ferozshah Kotla Stadium.  Following Gautam Gambhir's decision to leave the DD captaincy earlier this week, more bad news greeted the franchise ahead of the match as allrounder Chris Morris was ruled out of the rest of the season due to injury. Fellow South African Junior Dala was named his replacement. 

Read the preview by PTI here.

Struck by the crisis emanating from Gautam Gambhir's resignation as captain, a beleaguered Delhi face a Herculean task to revive their IPL campaign when they clash with Kolkata on Friday under young skipper Shreyas Iyer. 

Gambhir leaving the captaincy role earlier this week does not guarantee resurrection of the side but the left-hander's decision has given the team management a chance to infuse new life into the franchise with new ideas.

Gambhir's rough patch, along with poor form of other batsmen, has resulted in over-reliance on young Rishabh Pant. The team has lost five of its six matches and is languishing at the bottom of the points table.

Gambhir the batsman would still be critical if a turnaround has to happen for Delhi but it remains to be seen if he remains in the playing XI. The hosts are now in an unenvious position where they need to win seven of the remaining eight matches to be in Play-offs contention. 

The 23-year-old Iyer is faced with the enormous task of turning it around for the team as a leader. The young batsman showed that he has the heart for a fight when he took it upon himself to steer the side against Punjab.

He almost pulled it off. It was a performance which indicated that he is not averse to taking responsibility, which is the need of the hour for Delhi. 

The only game DD have won so far was shaped by Jason Roy's unbeaten whirlwind knock of 91 on debut. A big player not to have clicked for them is Australian all-rounder Glenn Maxwell. Maxwell has scores of 17, 13, 47, 4 and 12 so far and it is absolutely imperative for the team that he regains his form.

On the other hand, KKR are also struggling a bit with their bowling. But what has worked reasonably well for them is their batting. Their willow-wielders have been contributing consistently, twice taking the side past the 200-mark but bowlers have struggled to defend even big totals. 

KKR have won three matches and lost as many to sit fourth in the table. The last time the two sides clashed, it was KKR which dominated by putting 200 runs on the board to win by a comprehensive 71-run margin. It's a spin-heavy attack for KKR with Sunil Narine, Kuldeep Yadav and Piyush Chawla doing the bulk of the job.

The slow conditions at the Ferozshah Kotla are likely to suit this combination while the young Shivam Mavi and England's Tom Curran would BE spearheading the pace attack. Australian quick Mitchell Johnson has got only two games so far.

Andre Russell has done a fine all-round job for them and the West Indian continues to be a vital cog for them. His brute power would be of immense use on the Kotla pitch where the ball may not come on to the bat easily. The conditions will be testing for the KKR batsmen. 

Squads:

DD: Shreyas Iyer (C), Rishabh Pant, Glenn Maxwell, Gautam Gambhir, Jason Roy, Colin Munro, Mohammed Shami, Amit Mishra, Prithvi Shaw, Rahul Tewatia, Vijay Shankar, Harshal Patel, Avesh Khan, Shahbaz Nadeem, Daniel Christian, Jayant Yadav, Gurkeerat Singh Mann, Trent Boult, Manjot Kalra, Abhishek Sharma, Sandeep Lamichhane, Naman Ojha, Sayan Ghosh and Liam Plunkett, Junior Dala

KKR: Dinesh Karthik (C), Andre Russell, Sunil Narine, Chris Lynn, Robin Uthappa, Mitchell Johnson, Piyush Chawla, Kuldeep Yadav, Shubman Gill, Ishank Jaggi, Nitish Rana, Vinay Kumar, Apoorv Wankhade, Rinku Singh, Shivam Mavi, Cameron Delport, Javon Searles, Tom Curran and Prasidh Krishna.