IPL 2020: A New Season, Strength and weaknesses of teams, their playing 11 and much more(Part 3- DC and KKR)

IPL 2020:

Welcome to the Part-3 of the IPL 2020 series. In the previous part, we analyzed the strengths and weaknesses and playing 11 of both Royal Challengers Bangalore and Sunrisers Hyderabad. Hope you enjoyed the part-2 of this series. Let’s get into the part-3.

Read,

• IPL 2020: A new season, Strength and weaknesses of teams, their playing 11 and much more(Part 1)
• IPL 2020: A new season, Strength and weaknesses of teams, their playing 11 and much more(Part 2)

In this part, we are going to see about the teams which are filled with talented Indian youngsters mixed with some good foreign players.

Kolkata Knight Riders

Kolkata Knight Riders, lead by their captain Dinesh Karthik and coached by Brendon McCullum is one of the promising teams of IPL 2020. Many legends were part of this franchise in the past in the likes of Sourav Ganguly, Gayle, Baz, Gautam Gambhir, and the list goes on. KKR has won a total of two IPL cups in their cabinet. Both their title wins were under their most successful captain Gautam Gambhir.

Top Order:

In this season of IPL 2020, they have some young and top-performing openers in their list. Sunil Narine has been their opener since 2017 season of IPL. He has played some fearless and fierce innings in the past for them with, some insane strike-rates by an opener. Since Lynn has been dropped from the KKR squad, they need a proper opening batsman to replace him.

Rahul Tripathi and Tom Banton are the two options for them in IPL 2020. Considering Tripathi, he has been one of the star performers of RPS in the 2017 season of IPL. Tom Banton from England has performed well in the last season of BBL and one of the hot buys in the recent IPL auction.

Shubman Gill will be my no. 3 for KKR. He has been one of the serious talents Indian Cricket team. This youngster had played a good U19 WC in 2018. He has amassed a total score of 372 in that tournament playing 5 innings with the best score of 102*. He was the leading run-scorer for India in that tournament.

Middle and Lower-middle order:

Considering their middle order, KKR has one of the strong and destructive middle and lower-middle order. Eoin Morgan and Nitish Rana will be my no.4 and no.5 for KKR. The English captain, can be a batsman to settle their nerves among the young top-orders. Both Morgan and Rana are good players of spin, especially Nitish Rana has played well for them in the past.

Considering the lower-middle order, Dinesh Karthik and the Caribbean star Andre Russell will be my no.6 and no.7. They will play according to the overs left. Both are known for their finishing skills and has done their job pretty well in the past. In short, they are not less of destruction in the middle and lower-middle order in IPL 2020.

Bowlers:

They have a good mix of Indian and foreign bowlers. Pat Cummins the Australian speedster, is the most expensive foreign buy in the history of IPL and is expected to perform well in the IPL 2020. They have Lockie Ferguson and Harry Gurney in the squad but Cummins is my 1st preference in the playing 11.

They have good and young Indian Pacers in their squad. Shivam Mavi and Prasidh Krishna will feature in my playing 11 for KKR. They have other good pacers in their bench. They have some really good spinners in the likes of Sunil Naine and Kuldeep Yadav.

Strengths and weaknesses:

KKR in IPL 2020 has one of the best middle and lower-middle order but what they lack is an experienced or a premium top-order batsman. Even though the young top-order batsmen are good, this is something they should care for.

Considering their bowlers, they miss an extra spinner in their squad if their front-line spinners fails to fire. Also they lack a good death bowler, the other bowlers in the team should step-up for this role.

My playing 11 for KKR in IPL 2020:

Sunil Narine, R Tripathi, S Gill, Eoin Morgan, N Rana, D Karthik(c)(wk), Andre Russell, Pat Cummins, K Yadav, Prasidh Krishna, S Mavi.

Delhi Capitals

Delhi Capitals is one of the promising young teams led by their captain Shreyas Iyer and coached by their veteran Ricky Ponting. This team hasn’t won any IPL titles but many legends were part of this franchise. In the last season of IPL, they finish 3rd in the points table but losing to CSK in the Qualifier-2. They are expected to play well again in the IPL 2020.

Top Order:

Similar to KKR they have their squad is filled with youngsters but also equally they have some experienced players, so DC have their edge over KKR considering their top order.

Prithvi Shaw a promising youngster, who played U19 WC in 2018 along with KKR’s Gill, will open my playing 11 for DC. Shikhar Dhawan will open along with him. The veteran opener has quite a good experience as an opening batsman. They also have Jason Roy and Ajinkya Rahane in their squad, so they have quite good choices for their opening pair in IPL 2020.

My no.3 for DC will be their captain Shreyas Iyer. He is a reliable batsman for no.3 and has led his team well in the previous season of IPL.

Middle and Lower-middle order:

Similar to KKR, DC also has a destructive middle order, but they are young. Their no.4 will be India’s current wicket-keeper batsman Rishab Pant. Pant is known for his hitting abilities. He along with Hetmyer who will be their no.5 is an absolute threat for any bowling attack.

Pant’s recent form is questionable. Amidst of the retirement of the Ace Indian keeper Ms Dhoni, Pant has a point to prove in IPL 2020, to cement his place in the playing 11.

My no.6 and no.7 will be the all-rounders Marcus Stoinis and Keemo Paul. These two can be handy to finish the innings and can bowl few overs in tandem.

Bowlers:

They have some good and experienced bowlers to play for them in IPL 2020 in the likes of Ashwin, Mishra, Rabada, and Ishant. The four mentioned before will feature my playing 11 for DC. They also have Mohit Sharma, who may play in place of Ishant.

They also have Sandeep Lamichchane a promising leggie from Nepal. Axar Patel may also feature in the 11, if they need a Indian spinner.

Strengths and weaknesses:

They are one of the strongest teams to play in the IPL 2020. They have a good mix of young and senior players which is good for any T20 playing team. They have all-boxes ticked. Their only weakness can be their captian is too young, but he has already shown up a good performance in the last season. They also have problem of plenty, too many openers in their squad to select for and a good head-ache for the captain.

My playing 11 for DC in IPL 2020:

Prithvi Shaw/ Jason Roy, Shikhar Dhawan, Shreyas Iyer(c), R Pant(wk), S Hetmyer, M Stoinis, Keemo Paul/ Axar Patel, R Ashwin, K Rabada, A Mishra, I Sharma.

Hope you enjoyed the Part-3. See you again in Part-4 with the Kings of IPL.

Also read, Mahendra Singh Dhoni – “From 1929 hrs consider me as Retired”, Finishes off in style