Sports Pundit
Cricket

Delhi v Mumbai at Kotla, Delhi IPL 2011 Live

The Match: The Feroz Shah Kotla will be the host for the fourth game of this fourth edition of the Indian Premier League when the home team Delhi Daredevils take on the Mumbai Indians in the match.

The Match: The Feroz Shah Kotla will be the host for the fourth game of this fourth edition of the Indian Premier League when the home team Delhi Daredevils take on the Mumbai Indians in the match.

How the two teams match up: Mumbai Indians ran the risk of being one of the more inconsistent sides till the start of the third edition of the IPL, but they changed all of that in 2010 by getting to the final. Delhi, on the other hand have entered the semi-final of the IPL on two of the three occasions and it was only in the third edition did they crash out before the last four stage. Leads Mumbai Indians>

Ground Conditions: At the best of times, Feroz Shah Kotla has been in the news for the wrong reasons; an ODI was abandoned here and the ground was banned for one year. However, since then, they have overcome the unevenness of the bounce and yet, one can expect the wicket to play slow and low. Key player>

The Teams: Both sides have made huge changes to the squad, but at least Mumbai have retained four of their players in Sachin Tendulkar, Lasith Malinga, Kieron Pollard and Harbhajan Singh. Delhi were able to hold on to only Delhi Daredevils before the auction and then got Dave Warner from the auction.

Mumbai’s biggest two sign-ups will be Rohit Sharma and Andrew Symonds; the former for $2 million, a whopping sum. Symonds’ issues with Harbhajan Singh are well-chronicled and how they got about their job in the same team is going to be interesting. The bowling will be a worry after they gave up on Bravo and Zaheer Khan but Munaf Patel will add to the quick bowling department.

Delhi will be led by Sehwag, who has been a reluctant captain at the best of times, but it is interesting to see that apart from Irfan Pathan and to a lesser extent Warner, there are no big-name players in the squad.

There is a seemingly over-reliance on the local players, which should make their strategy sound like the one that Rajasthan had in 2008.

Players to look out for: For Delhi, it will be the pace bowling youngster, Varun Aaron, who can crank it up to more than 140 km/hr. Mumbai will depend on Harbhajan to deliver them the wickets.

Prediction: Mumbai Indians will be favourites here but a Sehwag special could derail all those talks.