Preview by Aayush Puthran

Although it's been two days since Holi, the 'organic' gulaalcolour hasn't completely left the skin of the Rajasthan Royals players as yet. In the Pink City, they are literally wearing the colour of their franchise on their bodies. An unintentional branding exercise.

For Delhi Capitals, it's not their jersey colour that's attracting as much attention as the return of their captain, Rishabh Pant. Batting, handling 'keeping duties and leading the side on his return to competitive cricket after a year and a half, he is expected to be their messiah following their disappointing run last season in his absence.

He enjoys facing Royals, a team against whom he has had tremendous success in the past. But is there enough in Pant to cover up for all of DC's inadequacies?

If the dominance of 2020 and 2021 promised DC the elusive trophy in the near future, the performances of the last two seasons have witnessed a freefall. They have lost 10 of their last 15 games, and are plagued by injuries, unavailability and indifferent form, despite several experiments, the team management are far from finding a fix.

Pant's absence may have been a key missing link in DC's fragile middle-order last season, but it seems to be just as vulnerable right now. With their insistence on retaining the opening Australian combination of David Warner and Mitchell Marsh, their middle order continues to wear a thin look. Abhishek Porel's explosive innings in the previous game would have given them some reasons to be delighted, but the burden on him along with Ricky Bhui, Axar Patel and Sumit Kumar is way too much to marshall the middle and lower-middle order with only a returning Rishabh Pant and yet-to-fire Tristan Stubbs.

The bowling pack is ready, believes team mentor Sourav Ganguly. It's on the batters to pick themselves up. The challenge, unfortunately, resumes against the potent, varied and experienced bowling attack of Royals in Jaipur. The good news for DC though is that the current lot of Royals players, despite the victory in the previous game, haven't fully aced the conditions of the tricky pitch at the Sawai Mansingh Stadium.

Head to head:

When: Thursday, March 28, 2023, 7:30 PM IST

Where: Rajasthan Royals vs Delhi Capitals, Match 9, IPL 2024, Sawai Mansingh Stadium, Jaipur

What to expect: While the ball kept low at times in the second innings, it was largely an easy-playing surface throughout the opening game. While it's the first evening game of Jaipur this season, dew isn't expected to be much of a factor so early in the tournament. The pitch has shown signs of being tricky at times and players might need to adjust on the go.

Team Watch:

Rajasthan Royals:

Injuries and availability: All players are available for the contest

Tactics & Matchups: While the hosts may not want to fiddle with their combination, their Impact Substitute strategy hangs delicately based on the toss as well as the match situation, allowing them the opportunity to choose between Rovman Powell and Nadre Burger as the fourth overseas player. While they might wait a bit longer on Shimron Hetmyer to regain his form, there is an opportunity to go for Powell ahead of the hard-hitting southpaw.

Probable XII: Yashasvi Jaiswal, Jos Buttler, Sanju Samson, Riyan Parag, Shimron Hetmyer, Dhruv Jurel, Rovman Powell/Nandre Burger, R Ashwin, Avesh Khan, Trent Boult, Sandeep Sharma, Yuzvendra Chahal.

Delhi Capitals:

Injuries/availability: Anrich Nortje has joined the squad after missing out the previous game due to personal reasons. Ishant Sharma and Mukesh Kumar have also recovered an are available for the game.

Tactics & Matchups: For as much as Sanju Samson has attacked left-arm spinners in the last three seasons of the IPL, he has struggled to score at a pace that he usually likes against Axar Patel and Kuldeep Yadav. The DC spin duo will be expected to cage Samson's strokeplay through the middle overs yet again.

Probable XII: David Warner, Mitchell Marsh, Abhishek Porel, Ricky Bhui, Rishabh Pant, Tristan Stubbs, Axar Patel, Sumit Kumar/Kumar Kushagra, Anrich Nortje, Kuldeep Yadav, Khaleel Ahmed, Ishant Sharma

Did you know?

Riyan Parag has scored only 75 runs in 7 innings against Delhi Capitals, at a strike rate of 91.46. With a promotion to No 4 in the batting order, he would look to fix that record.

Rishabh Pant has smashed four 50s in 9 innings against Rajasthan Royals, that too at a strike rate of 170.

What they said:

We decided on (Mitchell) Marsh and (David) Warner to open. Ricky Bhui is a middle order batsman. They bat in different positions. It's not (Ricky) Bhui for (Prithvi) Shaw but it's a different opening combination. They opened for Australia at the top and have done well together, so we decided to open with them - Sourav Ganguly on Delhi Capitals not picking Prithvi Shaw in the opening game.

We haven't played a lot at SMS over the last few years. We came back last year and I don't think we were as in-tune with the changes we had to make to our mindset and to our games to play on this track. The pitches have been relaid, the top soil. It's just a case of adjusting your mindset over what's presented, going with the gameplan and then trust to doing the hard work that's required on this pitch. It's not always a straightforward pitch and the players are more ready for that this year, hopefully - Kumar Sangakkara on the reason for Rajasthan Royals' sub-par record in Jaipur last season.

Squads:

Rajasthan Royals Squad: Yashasvi Jaiswal, Jos Buttler, Sanju Samson(w/c), Riyan Parag, Shimron Hetmyer, Dhruv Jurel, Ravichandran Ashwin, Sandeep Sharma, Avesh Khan, Trent Boult, Yuzvendra Chahal, Nandre Burger, Rovman Powell, Tanush Kotian, Shubham Dubey, Kuldeep Sen, Navdeep Saini, Tom Kohler-Cadmore, Prasidh Krishna, Donovan Ferreira, Abid Mushtaq, Kunal Singh Rathore

Delhi Capitals Squad: David Warner, Mitchell Marsh, Shai Hope, Rishabh Pant(w/c), Ricky Bhui, Tristan Stubbs, Axar Patel, Sumit Kumar, Abishek Porel, Kuldeep Yadav, Khaleel Ahmed, Ishant Sharma, Mukesh Kumar, Jake Fraser-McGurk, Vicky Ostwal, Praveen Dubey, Jhye Richardson, Anrich Nortje, Prithvi Shaw, Lalit Yadav, Rasikh Dar Salam, Kumar Kushagra, Yash Dhull, Swastik Chikara