New Delhi: A resurgent Delhi Daredevils will look to continue with their winning momentum when they take on defending champions Kolkata Knight Riders in the team's fifth match of the IPL cricket tournament at the Feroz Shah Kotla, here on Monday.
After two opening losses in this edition of the cash-rich league, the Jean-Paul Duminy-led side bounced back with two straight wins to put its campaign back on track.
It was not that DD were playing bad cricket but probably luck had deserted them in the first two matches, which they lost by close margins. Fortunes turned in their third game against King XI Punjab when the batsmen chased down a 166-run target.
If opener Mayank Agarwal and star batsman Yuvraj Singh scored strokeful fifties in that game then Shreyas Iyer and Duminy also hit half-centuries in their previous win against SunRisers Hyderabad.
The batting has looked good and the bowling, ably led by South African leg-spinner Imran Tahir (9 wickets in 4 games), has also started to fire on all cylinders.
Tahir and Amit Mishra have been potent leg-spinners and the effective pace battery comprises Nathan Coulter-Nile and Angelo Mathews.
Duminy sounded confident of the team's future this season after the four-run win against SRH at Vizag, "Proud of the boys about how they stuck to their gameplans. You're never out of the game in T20, so that's what I tell the boys, Make sure you concentrate on every ball of the game.
"We always went for our wickets, knew that was the key [Two wins on the trot] Long may it continue, we'll enjoy tonight and play again in two days time."
KKR, on the other hand, showed their might against Kings XI Punjab in their previous game as the Gautam Gambhir-led side pulled off its second win in three games to stay in the top-four of the table.
In-form batsman Andre Russell struck a belligerent 66 off 36 balls to help the team chase down 156 after being five down for 60. Even Gambhir and Suryakumar Yadav have risen to the challenge when it has mattered.
