IPL 2023: Focus on batting as DC eye a double against SRH

With backtoback wins giving them some momentum Delhi Capitalswill hope their batters complement the bowling unit as they eye a season double against Sunrisers Hyderabad in a battle of IPL laggards here on SaturdayThe two teams are coming into the match following DCs nailbiting sevenrun win on Monday and SRH will be eager to return the favour and snap their threematch losing streakSkipper David Warner marshalled his troops well against his former team the other day using the spin of Axar Patel and Kuldeep Yadav to strangle the chase with seamer Mukesh Kumar holding his own in the final over while defending 12 runsAlso Read LSG in need of underpressure KL Rahuls pyrotechnics against stable GujaratWhile Ishant Sharma and Anrich Nortje too bowled well the spin duo of Axar and Kuldeep gave away just 43 and snapped three wickets in the eight overs between them in the middle oversHowever the batting let them down with Manish Pandey and Axar Patel managing to lift Capitals to 128 for five from 62 for fiveWhile skipper David Warner has done the heavy lifting on most occasions his innings lacked the usual finesse as he faced the most number of dot balls in the powerplay this IPL The fact that Delhi have struggled to get a steady opener at the other end has only extended his worryThe other day Phil Salt was tried but he was out for a duck while Mitchell Marsh looked good during his short stay against SRH but 31 runs in five innings tells his storySarfaraz Khan and Aman Hakim Khan too have struggled and had it not been for Axar things could have been embarrassing for Delhi in the IPLThe spin allrounder has proved to be more than a handful with the bat and DC need to promote him up the order to fully utilise his skillsSRH on the other hand looked like winning for a major part of their last match but things went down the hill quickly as a slow start to the chase proved costly in the endAfter his maiden IPL hundred Harry Brook has struggled to get going in the powerplay With scores of 13 3 9 18 and 7 the England batter has failed to give SRH a startMayank Agarwal has two 40 plus scores so far while Rahul Tripathi has faded since hitting a 74 not out against Punjab Kings Abhishek Sharma too has struggled to score runsSkipper Aiden Markram and Heinrich Klaasen too have not been able to do much and SRH will have to strengthen their batting to have any hopes of a turnaroundIt is the bowlers who have looked more in sync as the spinners have complemented the seamersIf Bhuvneshwar Kumar was on the money with 2 for 11 the other day spinner Washington Sundar was simply sensational when he snapped three wickets in the 8th over to leave DC at 72 for five and they will hope to dish out another good show with the ballTeams fromDelhi Capitals David Warner c Prithvi Shaw Sarfaraz Khan Aman Hakim Khan Abhishek Porel wk Axar Patel Khaleel Ahmed Kuldeep Yadav Rovman Powell Rilee Rossouw Anrich Nortje Mustafizur Rahaman Chetan Sakariya Mukesh Kumar Phil Salt Lungi Ngidi Praveen Dubey Lalit Yadav Ripal Patel Vicky Ostwal Ishant Sharma Manish Pandey Kamlesh Nagarkoti and Yash DhullSunrisers Hyderabad Aiden Markram c Abdul Samad Rahul Tripathi Glenn Phillips Abhishek Sharma Marco Jansen Washington Sundar Fazalhaq Farooqi Kartik Tyagi Bhuvneshwar Kumar T Natarajan Umran Malik Harry Brook Mayank Agarwal Heinrich Klaasen Adil Rashid Mayank Markande Vivrant Sharma Samarth Vyas Sanvir Singh Upendra Yadav Mayank Dagar Nitish Kumar Reddy Akeal Hosein Anmolpreet SinghMatch starts 730 pm IST