New IPL, new season. New everything. A new, younger outfit, full of performers, if not superstars. Lot of individual brilliance, lot of inspiring performances! Yet, Delhi’s woes remain the same. A Team delivering back to back shoddy performances, seems to be going the same way. Since 2011, Delhi haven’t delivered a single good season. And just when it seemed they would this year, they have yet again flattered to deceive, having lost their fourth game in a row, that takes their tally to a mere two victories out of the seven games they have played. This, after winning two of their first three games. That makes it four losses in a row.
The tournament surely hasn’t yet ended; same goes for Delhi and their chances. Delhi can still win their next two games, gather momentum, and make a strong case for qualification. All is not gone. But the way things are going, it seems like an uphill task for a Team led by the experienced Zaheer Khan.
Where do Delhi’s problems lie? They probably have the most potent bowling attack. Led by Zaheer Khan who has bowled wonderfully, the bowling line up is aggrandized by the presence of the South African Kagiso Rabada and the Australian Pat Cummins, two of the most exciting young talents in World Cricket. Then, we have the dangerous Chris Morris, who on his day can blast any bowling attack into smithereens or can rattle even the best batting line ups. Corey Anderson is regarded as one of the best all-rounders in World Cricket. Amit Mishra has always been a tricky customer to deal with as far as his leg-spin is concerned. It’s clear, that bowling isn’t Delhi problems.
Let’s talk about the last game. From a position where Delhi could have or should have scored at least 190, they ended up getting 161 eventually. Sanju Samon, Karun Nair, Shreyas Iyer, Rishabh Pant and Bawne – Delhi’s batting line up in yesterday’s game in that order. While Samson and Iyer have been brilliant, Nair, who hasn’t done a lot after that triple century, is yet to come good even in this IPL. Pant played a couple of brilliant knocks, but that was that. Meanwhile, Bawne is unheard of. And this, we believe, is where Rahul Dravid has missed a trick or two as a mentor. It’s great to promote youngsters. But for that, you need to have someone established and experienced up the order for the youngsters to revolve around. You cannot expect four youngsters to revolve around another youngster in every game and yield the results you desire. They had Quinton De Kock, but his unavailability was known pretty early in the tournament. As a replacement, an experienced international player who had a reputation similar to that of Rohit Sharma, Virat Kolhi, Glenn Maxwell or ABD would have helped Delhi’s cause by a great deal. Every other Team in the IPL has a couple of experienced international batsmen in the Team, around whom youngsters and uncapped players revolve. We aren’t saying every Team is doing wonderfully. But talking about the Daredevils who arguably have the most potent bowling attack in the tournament, their inexperienced batting is letting them down, as was seen in the game against Mumbai where they slumped to 24/6 chasing a modest total before Rabada and Morris got them close to the target.
Rahul Dravid, the legendary former India batsman, has been amazing as a mentor for youngsters. He’s shaping up the India Under-19 squad exceedingly well. However, to rope in an inexperienced batting line up and put them up against best of international players isn’t the best idea and as a result, Delhi is suffering, tottering at the bottom of the table along with the RCB. May be, just may be, the great Rahul Dravid has missed a trick here! A rare sight to see, though.
