IPL: Struggling for form, Delhi and Bangalore eye top-two finish

DC and RCB come into the virtual quarter-final having lost four and three games on the trot respectively. At stake is a top-two finish, which provides a couple of attempts to make it to the final. The loser of Monday’s game could still end up making the play-offs, but it will then be at the mercy of other teams.

Delhi, which bossed most sides in the first half of the tournament, has had a dramatic fall from grace, with its last win coming two weeks ago. Its batsmen have come a cropper since then and the bowling doesn’t look as potent as it was in the beginning.

Problems started when DC found it difficult to find a stable opening combination. Both Prithvi Shaw and Ajinkya Rahane have been paired up with Shikhar Dhawan, but either of them has not provided consistency. In fact, Dhawan, who was flying high with back-to-back hundreds, has only managed 6, 0 and 0 in the last three games.

Shreyas Iyer-led Delhi relies heavily on the big-hitting Rishabh Pant in the middle-order, but with 274 runs at a strike-rate of 112.29, he is yet to find his mojo. Like DC, RCB too is smarting from a string of losses. The three defeats on the trot have reignited the debate on the team’s dependency on its star players – Virat Kohli and AB de Villiers.

Both Kohli and de Villiers didn’t fire in the last two games, resulting in heavy losses. Josh Philippe has shown promise at the top of the order after replacing Aaron Finch, but needs to convert starts into big scores.