It’s Chahal vs Kuldeep in battle of spinners

MUMBAI: With the in-form Jos Buttler (375 runs) and Chahal (17 wickets) in its ranks, Royals is a team that is looking pretty formidable at the moment even with a dysfunctional middle-order, save Shimron Hetmyer.

On the other hand, the resurgent Capitals is battling the agony that comes with a mini COVID-19 outbreak in the camp but is still trying to put its best foot forward to stay afloat.

In this backdrop, the two wrist-spinners, who are currently dominating the bowling charts will be itching to show their wares with Kuldeep (13 wickets at No. 2) expected to pose some questions for in-form Buttler in case there is a match-up. For Delhi, Kuldeep along with Axar Patel and Lalit Yadav would like to stem the run-flow but stopping Buttler will be on top of its agenda on a Wankhede track that is expected to be good for batting.

For Chahal, how he varies the pace against a rampaging David Warner or the ever-attacking Prithvi Shaw and skipper Rishabh Pant will be a delight for the fans.

In the past five years, life has come a full circle for ‘Kul-Cha’ who were the ‘taste’ of the nation between 2017 and 2019 when wrist spinners were in vogue during the Ravi Shastri-Virat Kohli era.

While Chahal got a body blow after being dropped from the last T20 World Cup squad and was sporadically picked in white ball formats, Kuldeep also lost his way.

He got very little support from either erstwhile national team management or his previous IPL team (KKR) and also endured a career-threatening knee injury. However, in these kind of games, the support cast becomes more important as they can create those little game-changing moments that impact the final outcome of the game.

Mustafizur Rahaman’s cutters and Khaleel Ahmed’s clever change of pace could also trouble the likes of Sanju Samson and Riyan Parag.