DC’s Middle Order Under Spotlight Against KKR’s Spin Twins
Big picture: Can KKR hit the scoring pedal?
One game, one win, one point. There’s not much that separates the two sides that face off on Friday evening in Delhi, except the paths they have taken to end up in the bottom half of the points table. Despite a promising start to IPL 2026, Delhi Capitals (DC) have lost four of their last five games and slipped to seventh. Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) started with five straight losses but have picked up some pace in the playoffs race on the back of their spin attack to be placed eighth with three wins in a row.
Form guide
Delhi Capitals LWLLL (last five matches, most recent first)
Kolkata Knight Riders WWWLL
Key question
Team news: Will Pathirana finally play?
While Matheesha Pathirana has been with the squad for a while, KKR have stuck to their four overseas combination of Narine, Rovman Powell, Cameron Green and one out of Finn Allen and Tim Seifert. KKR don’t want to rush Pathirana back with mentor Dwayne Bravo suggesting that “he is very close to playing”. They may not see a reason to change the XI otherwise.
Kolkata Knight Riders (probable): 1 Ajinkya Rahane (capt), 2 Finn Allen, 3 Angkrish Raghuvanshi (wk), 4 Rinku Singh, 5 Cameron Green, 6 Rovman Powell, 7 Manish Pandey, 8 Sunil Narine, 9 Anukul Roy, 10 Kartik Tyagi, 11 Varun Chakravarthy, 12 Vaibhav Arora
Delhi Capitals (probable): 1 Pathum Nissanka, 2 KL Rahul (wk), 3 Nitish Rana, 4 Karun Nair, 5 Axar Patel (capt), 6 Tristan Stubbs, 7 Sameer Rizvi, 8 Ashutosh Sharma, 9 Mitchell Starc, 10 Lungi Ngidi, 11 Kuldeep Yadav, 12 T Natarajan
In the spotlight: Kuldeep Yadav and Angkrish Raghuvanshi
Kuldeep Yadav has so far had five wicketless outings in nine games and his economy rate of 10.40 is the worst among spinners (minimum ten overs) this tournament. One of the reasons is that he hasn’t been as effective against right-hand batters this IPL as he was last year, and against the right-handed heavy KKR line-up, Kuldeep will have a big challenge waiting for him.
Stats and trivia
- Once a Test-match contest, we could see Mitchell Starc bowl to Ajinkya Rahane on Friday. In six T20s, Rahane has struck at only 133 against Starc for 44 runs while being dismissed once.
- KL Rahul’s strike rate against Narine is 151 but drops to 102 while facing Varun.
- Kuldeep could draw some confidence from his record against Rahane: two dismissals in five innings with a strike rate of just 70.
- DC last beat KKR in the 2023 IPL.
- Rahul has scored 26% of DC’s runs so far this season.
- Axar Patel has managed just one double-digit score from seven innings this IPL.
Pitch and conditions
The pitch to be used for Friday will host the first evening game of this tournament. Two day matches have been played here. On the first occasion, DC chased down 163 against MI and on the second occasion, PBKS chased 265. The team winning the toss might still prefer chasing for a 7.30pm game. Some parts of north India have been witnessing showers but the forecast for Delhi is clear for Friday, with the temperature expected to remain in the early 30s during the game, which will make it extremely hot.
Quotes
“If you look at the stats throughout this season, KKR are one of the better bowling groups… especially from overs No. 7 to 20, and that’s because of our spin attack. We have three of the best quality spinners in the tournament. Tim Southee, the bowling coach, and myself: what we bring is that we try to teach and coach real game-time things, that they expect to happen in a game and, and get our guys to practice like that.”
KKR mentor Dwayne Bravo
“The pitches, they have been a bit different, I wouldn’t, I mean it’s not impossible to play. I think we scored, what was it, 260 plays 260, then there’s been one or two low scores, so it has been a little bit different. But look, I mean that’s the nature of cricket, you’re always having to adapt to the conditions and what lies in front of you. Potentially chasing might be an option to see what total you know you have to score on a wicket that you’re not too sure what it’s gonna do.”
David Miller said the Delhi tracks haven’t been consistent
