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New Delhi: With Kevin Pietersen or Mahela Jayawardene back into the team, Team Delhi would look to get back to their winning form against Chennai at Kotla on Tuesday.
It must be hard, then, for a Kevin Pietersen or Mahela Jayawardene to be plunged straight into this absorbing blend so soon after an intense Test series. No wonder Pietersen appeared a bit lost for words when a hack cruelly asked him about Team Delhi's local strengths!
The arrival of this power-packed England batsman, along with the Lankan batting hero and skipper, dominated Team Delhi's cricketing and branding exercises on Monday, the eve of their opening game at home against defending champs Chennai.
With so much spotlight on the big stars, the issue ahead of Tuesday's encounter at the Ferozeshah Kotla is not so much whether pacer Umesh Yadav will play -- he appeared to be bowling only half-tilt at practice after limping out of the ground in Delhi's last game -- or whether Virender Sehwag's team can make do with its near-anonymous spin attack. Or even whether opening the bowling with Irfan Pathan and Doug Bracewell is a tactical error given the presence of Morne Morkel in the ranks.
Instead, the pressure is on the more established players to drag the team up by the bootstraps following its wooden-spoon finish last year. "Mahela and KP's return will boost us," Sehwag said. "Young players are looking forward to sharing the dressing room with them."
Mahela, while acknowledging that the IPL was part fun and part serious business ("it's 50-50"), admitted there was a lot of pressure. "Both KP and I have a bigger responsibility on the field. Our responsibility is to perform and help Viru as much as possible on the field. For both of us, it's a good challenge," he said.
Delhi's two matches so far have swung opposite ends of the spectrum: a victory in a truncated game against Kolkata -- through an inspired show with the bat from Irfan Pathan -- being followed by an insipid show from the team's desi brigade as they went down to Bangalore. Sehwag fell for a duck, Irfan leaked 47.
It's hard to predict which Delhi will turn up on Tuesday. It's up to the team management now to suitably rejig the combination, maybe allow the in-form Jayawardene to open, and hope that Pietersen's bat continues to yield runs. While Jayawardene admitted the immediate need was to somehow keep Chennai's batsmen under check, the obsession with KP and Mahela seemed to extend to the rival camp, with opener Faff du Plessis singling out the two as "massive players" who need to be reigned in.
Chennai arrive in Delhi on the back of a defeat to Mumbai and a massive 74-run win against Hyderabad. It's apparent that living up to their 'IPL Invincibles' tag will take some doing this season. With Ravindra Jadeja complementing the heavy-hitters, Chennai's best bet is to pile up a huge total to ease into form.
With the stage set, it's up to the notorious Kotla pitch not to play spoilsport.
Teams from
Delhi Daredevils V Sehwag (captain), MC Juneja, VR Aaron, AB Agarkar, P Bisht, R Bist, GH Bodi, DAJ Bracewell, U Chand, AJ Finch, DPMD Jayawardene, GJ Maxwell, M Morkel, S Nadeem, Y Nagar, PT Naik, P Negi, NV Ojha (wk), IK Pathan, KP Pietersen, KC Raval, AD Russell, AM Salvi, LRPL Taylor, RE van der Merwe, Y Venugopal Rao, Vikas Mishra, DA Warner, TP Yadav, UT Yadav, Zafir Patel.
Chennai Super Kings MS Dhoni (captain & wk), S Anirudha, R Ashwin, S Badrinath, GJ Bailey, DE Bollinger, DJ Bravo, F du Plessis, BW Hilfenhaus, MEK Hussey, RA Jadeja, SB Jakati, Joginder Sharma, S Randiv, KMDN Kulasekara, VY Mahesh, JA Morkel, A Mukund, SK Raina, WP Saha (wk), SB Styris, S Tyagi, K Vasudevadas, G Vignesh, M Vijay
Stats and trivia
Match facts
Tuesday April 10, 2012 (day/night)
Start time 2000 local (1430 GMT)
