At the end of match No 34 of this year’s Indian Premier League, Delhi Capitals and Royal Challengers Bangalore were looking good on the points table. Shreyas Iyer and Co had won seven out of their nine games and were on top, while Virat Kohli’s team was third with six wins from nine matches.
Delhi Capitals looked impressive right from the start. Their skipper was in form with the bat, Prithvi Shaw was firing at the top of the order, Marcus Stoinis was proving balance to the side with his all-round skills, while Kagiso Rabada Anrich Nortje, Ravichandran Ashwin and Co made for a versatile bowling attack. At one stage in the league, DC looked like the team to beat.
RCB, on the other hand, were hardly looked as contenders for the playoffs. Having finished at the bottom in two of the last three seasons, not a lot was expected from them. But Kohli’s men showed they meant business and performed consistently to remain in the top half of the table. Devdutt Padikkal, AB de Villiers and the captain himself got among the runs, while Yuzvendra Chahal, Navdeep Saini, Chris Morris and Washington Sundar stepped up with the ball.
However, Delhi and Bangalore’s seasons have gone off the rails over the past two weeks. While both teams are still in the top three heading into the final round of the league stage, things are looking far from comfortable for them. They face each other next and as things stand, there’s a chance just one of them will qualify for the playoffs.
IPL 2020 playoffs qualification scenarios: DC, RCB in shootout for 2nd spot; SRH in strong position
Switched off
As of now, Delhi Capitals are on a four-match losing streak. The first of those defeats came against Kings XI Punjab by five wickets, then Kolkata Knight Riders beat them by 59 runs, then came an 88-run hammering by Sunrisers Hyderabad, and finally a nine-wicket loss to Mumbai Indians.
The defeat against the defending champions on Saturday saw DC put up a listless performance. Asked to bat first, they failed to register a single partnership and could manage just 110/9 in their 20 overs. And even with the ball, Rabada and Nortje were taken to the cleaners as MI chased down the total with the loss of just one wicket.
It’s hard to put a finger on what exactly has gone wrong for Delhi. From looking like sure-shot title contenders, they’ve dug themselves a hole and are in a tricky position at the moment. Injuries to Ashwin, Ishant Sharma, Amit Mishra, Rishabh Pant and Shimron Hetmyer through the tournament did play a part in robbing them of momentum. But, perhaps, there has been complacency too. Iyer and Co took the foot off the pedal and have paid the price for it. The world-class players are still there, but the desire seems to be lacking.
“We had a good start to the tournament and probably relaxed a bit in the middle,” said Delhi Capitals assistant coach Mohammad Kaif in the post-match press conference on Saturday.
“It’s a tough tournament. The players are feeling a bit of pressure. But we’re backing our main players to come good in the next match. We didn’t expect it to come down to net run-rate, we had won some good matches and thought we might qualify easily. But now we have to fight against RCB and try hard to win that game.”
Familiar woes
Royal Challengers Bangalore, too, have not tasted victory for a while. Their last three matches have seen them lose to Chennai Super Kings (by eight wickets), Mumbai Indians (by five wickets), and Sunrisers Hyderabad (by five wickets).
Against SRH on Saturday, the Bangalore batsmen struggled to cope with the sluggish nature of the Sharjah pitch. They lost wickets consistently and finished with a well below-par total of 120/7 in their 20 overs. A win from that position was always a long shot and the Sunrisers finished off the chase in just 14.1 overs.
RCB have always relied greatly on Kohli and de Villiers and it’s no coincidence that the star duo has failed in almost all their defeats so far. While Padikkal has no doubt been a revelation, Bangalore still look shaky in the middle order. And their bowling department too, which bettered expectations in the first half this season, hasn’t looked threatening in the last three games. Chris Morris, who has played a key role in RCB’s success this year, has had an economy rate of 9.4 in the last three matches.
But most importantly, RCB, just like DC, seem to have switched off after fighting their way to a strong position on the table. They need to regain that hustle which helped them notch-up some impressive wins earlier in the season.
“It’s a terrible feeling to lose three in a row, you never want to do that,” said de Villiers in the post-match press conference on Saturday. “That’s the nature of this tournament, anything can happen. If you can lose three in a row, you can win three in a row as well. So that will be our thinking moving forward. One step at a time. The Delhi game is a big game, we all know that. We’re going to have to come out with our best cricket on the day. And if we do that, things will look up for us.”
Timing
Mumbai Indians, the most successful team in the history of the T20 tournament with four titles, have a reputation of starting slowly before picking up steam. And that’s been the remarkable thing about them. They may face hiccups along the way but they move steadily in one direction.
Even CSK, for that matter, sustained their momentum as they won three titles and never zoned out in the 10 seasons they made the playoffs.
Both these teams mastered the art of peaking at the right time. The IPL is a long tournament and to succeed in it, one has to be relentless.
Delhi and Bangalore still have their fate in their own hands. Despite their current predicament, they have the opportunity to bounce back and enter the playoffs with fresh energy. Both teams are searching for their first IPL title and they surely have the personnel to achieve that breakthrough. It just comes down to the hunger.
