Delhi Daredevils Still Look 1st Win

New Delhi: The abysmal performance of Delhi Daredevils has highlighted one of the reasons why some teams tend to fall by the wayside in this league — the vast gulf in standards between the big draws and the Indian domestic players, which makes for some lopsided cricket.

It's hard to believe the Devils — who will be looking to stave off a sixth successive defeat on Thursday against Chennai Super Kings at the Ferozeshah Kotla — were a model of efficiency just last season, becoming the first to reach the playoffs.

This edition, the absence of the likes of Kevin Pietersen and Jesse Ryder, combined with the blow hot-blow cold form of David Warner, Virendra Sehwag and Mahela Jayawardene, is being cited as a reason for their poor run of luck.

The likes of Kedhar Jadhav, whose 16-ball 29 was the top score against RCB in Tuesday's topsy-turvy clash, Manprit Juneja, Unmukt Chand, Naman Ojha, all have neither evolved into match-winners in their own right nor can they be expected to deliver consistently in a supporting role. Irfan Pathan has his limitations with both bat and ball, although in the current circumstances he is a valuable player.

Skipper Dhoni — who skipped training on Wednesday, even as some of his players complained of poor nets facilities at the Kotla — will be aware after the Pune defeat that his team's famed finishing powers can't pull off a miracle every day.

Dhoni also needs to solve the Albie Morkel/Michael Hussey conundrum soon. But he at least has a wealth of names to choose from, like Faf du Plessis.

CSK's bowling coach Andy Bichel, meanwhile, paid lip service to Delhi's explosive top order, saying, "I call DD 'Dangerous Delhi'. They have Sehwag and Warner. They have nothing to lose."

Teams from

Delhi Daredevils DPMD Jayawardene (captain), MC Juneja, AB Agarkar, GH Bodi, J Botha, U Chand, RH Dias, CM Gautam, KM Jadhav (wk), S Kaul, BMAJ Mendis, M Morkel, S Nadeem, Y Nagar, SS Nayak, P Negi, A Nehra, NV Ojha (wk), IK Pathan, BJ Rohrer, AD Russell, V Sehwag, AS Singhvi, RE van der Merwe, Y Venugopal Rao, DA Warner, UT Yadav

Chennai Super Kings MS Dhoni (captain & wk), S Anirudha, B Aparajith, R Ashwin, S Badrinath, DJ Bravo, A Dananjaya, F du Plessis, BW Hilfenhaus, JO Holder, MEK Hussey, Imtiaz Ahmed, RA Jadeja, SB Jakati, R Karthikeyan, KMDN Kulasekara, B Laughlin, RG More, JA Morkel, CH Morris, DP Nannes, SK Raina, AS Rajpoot, WP Saha (wk), V Shankar, MM Sharma, M Vijay

Match facts
Thursday April 18, 2013 (day/night)
Start time 20:00 local (1430 GMT)