Punjab Kings will take on the Delhi Capitals in their second game in Dharamsala and it is Ricky Ponting, who will be in the spotlight as he takes on his former side for the first time after being their head coach for seven years. The Capitals need to win.
It has been a frustrating couple of weeks for the Delhi Capitals, with their last win coming against the Lucknow Super Giants 16 days ago. Delhi wasn’t as auspicious for the Capitals, with the hosts winning just one out of three matches they played in the capital, that too in the Super Over. The Capitals saved their face against the Sunrisers with rain coming to their rescue but this is the endgame now for Axar Patel and his men.
The Capitals have played a bit of careless cricket in the past few weeks, especially the batters with the musical chairs among the top three not helping their cause and the inconsistency of their key, experienced batters has hit them hard. Punjab Kings, Gujarat Titans and Mumbai Indians – three teams who are in contention are the Delhi Capitals’ opponents in their remaining games; hence, it is a death battle for the 2020 finalists towards the playoffs and they will be keen to turn their campaign around after below-average performance in the last couple of weeks.
Ricky Ponting, the Punjab Kings head coach, will be baying for Delhi’s blood, his former franchise, being removed after seven seasons with the side. Punjab will be worried about their fifth bowler a bit, as Vijaykumar Vyshak didn’t really make an impression at the death and hence, the Kings might be tempted to try out Kuldeep Sen on fast, bouncy wickets in Dharamsala.
My Dream11 team for IPL 2025 Match 58, PBKS vs DC
Prabhsimran Singh, KL Rahul (c), Abishek Porel, Shreyas Iyer, Nehal Wadhera, Josh Inglis, Mitchell Starc (vc), Kuldeep Yadav, T Natarajan, Marco Jansen, Arshdeep Singh
Probable Playing XIIs
Punjab Kings: Priyansh Arya, Prabhsimran Singh, Shreyas Iyer (c), Marcus Stoinis, Nehal Wadhera, Josh Inglis (wk), Shashank Singh, Azmatullah Omarzai, Marco Jansen, Arshdeep Singh, Yuzvendra Chahal, Vyshak Vijaykumar/Kuldeep Sen
Delhi Capitals: Faf du Plessis/Jake Fraser-McGurk, Abishek Porel, Karun Nair, KL Rahul (wk), Axar Patel (C), Tristan Stubbs, Ashutosh Sharma, Vipraj Nigam, Mitchell Starc, Dushmantha Chameera, Kuldeep Yadav, T Natarajan
