Kagiso Rabada and Axar Patel: Runners-up of Indian Premier League 2020 have taken the field without their premier bowlers.
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During the second match of the ongoing 14th season of the Indian Premier League between Chennai Super Kings and Delhi Capitals in Mumbai, Delhi Capitals captain Rishabh Pant has won the toss and chose to field.
Much like Pant, Chennai Super Kings captain Mahendra Singh Dhoni also wanted to field first as defending at the Wankhede Stadium is no mean task according to him.
“We were also looking to bowl, it’s slightly difficult to defend on this ground. Dew could be a factor, but it’s cloudy today, so it might not be a factor. The combination looks good, some of the overseas players turned up late, some are in quarantine, but we are ready to go,” Dhoni told Star Sports at the toss.
In Faf du Plessis, Moeen Ali, Sam Curran and Dwayne Bravo, Chennai have included four overseas players leaving out veteran spinner Imran Tahir. As far as the Indian players are concerned, vice-captain Suresh Raina has also returned for the franchise.
Why are Kagiso Rabada and Axar Patel not playing vs CSK?
Capitals, on the other hand, have made strange selections especially in their bowling department. While the South African pair of Kagiso Rabada and Anrich Nortje were unavailable for this match as they undergoing a mandatory seven-day quarantine period, all-rounder Axar Patel missed out after testing positive for COVID-19.
Veteran spinner Amit Mishra, who had missed a large chunk of IPL 2020 due to an injury, was included in the Playing XI. However, among the pacers, Capitals chose Avesh Khan over a couple of experienced campaigners in Ishant Sharma and Umesh Yadav.
So @DelhiCapitals without four first choice quicks! Rabada, Nortje, Ishant and Umesh. But like #CSK, they bat very deep.
— Harsha Bhogle (@bhogleharsha) April 10, 2021
“We will bowl first. The wicket looks a bit soft. I will be a mix of youth and experience, have done a bit of captaincy in 2017, but my first IPL game. We aren’t playing in Delhi, so think it’s working fine,” Pant told Star Sports at the toss while captaining for the first time in the IPL.
