New Delhi: Delhi Daredevils are expected to get a boost ahead of their IPL match against Royal Challengers Bangalore on Sunday with pacer Zaheer Khan likely to recover from his injury and make a comeback into the team, the side's assistant coach Praveen Amre has said.
Zaheer has been struggling to get fit since the time he joined the Daredevils' training session ahead of IPL season eight and Amre assured that the left-arm pacer will soon take the field.
"We are hopeful that by the 26th game he will be fit. But it depends on the physio. Like today he did bowl in the nets, so we are very positive about it," Amre said after Delhi's six-wicket loss to Kolkata Knight Riders at Feroz Shah Kotla, here last night.
The Jean-Paul Duminy-led side did bounce back from its opening two losses to snap their 11-match losing streak in the cash-rich league, but the team suffered their ninth straight home loss when they were outplayed by the defending champions Kolkata Knight Riders.
Amre though is still confident of Daredevils coming up with a good show.
"We still have three games here and the two away wins were also important for us. I think the next game we play against Mumbai Indians will be very important for us," said the former India cricketer.
"We can't complain about the wicket. Whatever wicket is there, we have to play good cricket and I think today we were just short of 20 runs," he added.
Opting to field, KKR restricted Delhi to 146 for eight and then reached the target in 18.1 overs. Morne Morkel, Piyush Chawla and man-of-the-match Umesh Yadav shared two wickets each and Amre was all praise for the Kolkata bowlers.
"We must give credit to the KKR bowlers because they bowled extremely well to give just 36 runs in the first powerplays. I will say that Umesh bowling four overs for 18 runs was very crucial, because we could not even get runs in the death overs.
"That was the time we knew that we were 20 runs short, especially on the Delhi wicket. 170 plus is a par score but you must give credit to the KKR bowlers because they bowled brilliantly," insisted Amre.
