Delhi Capitals (DC) started their campaign in the Indian Premier League (IPL) 2026 on a high note. DC had won two consecutive matches but after that it went off track. He had to face defeat in the next two matches. DC made a comeback by defeating Royal Challengers Bangalore (RCB) but then lost three consecutive matches. The team captained by Akshar Patel is currently at seventh position with 8 points in 10 matches. Now it is a do or die situation for him.
DC will have to win all four of their remaining matches to stake their claim for the playoffs. If it loses even one match, it will be on the verge of being out of IPL 2026. Today (8 May) it faces Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR), who are coming after winning 3 consecutive matches. DC would like its captain Axar Patel to shine with the ball as well as the bat in this important match. Akshar has been able to score only 33 runs in 7 innings in the current season.
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Akshar’s bat got rusted
Left arm spinner Akshar is the leading wicket-taker for DC in IPL 2026. He has taken 9 wickets in 10 innings. During this period his economy has been 8.25. These figures are great to read but the reality is something else. Axar is now avoiding bowling difficult overs, which makes his figures look better. Whereas in batting, he is not able to succeed at any position. For the last two years, Akshar was coming up as a pinch hitter and was playing match-changing innings, but in the current season, he has not been able to leave his mark with the bat even in a single match.
Akshar had scored 26 runs in 19 balls in the chase of 176 runs against RCB in Bengaluru on 18 April, which is his best score of this season. Apart from this, he has not been able to cross the double figures even once. The thing to note is that his strike rate is also 89.18. He is neither able to survive nor score runs fast, due to which DC is missing on important occasions.
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Probable playing XI of both the teams:
Kolkata Knight Riders – Ajinkya Rahane (captain), Finn Allen, Angkrish Raghuvanshi (wicketkeeper), Rinku Singh, Cameron Green, Rovman Powell, Manish Pandey, Sunil Narine, Anukul Roy, Kartik Tyagi, Varun Chakraborty, Vaibhav Arora.
Delhi Capitals – Pathum Nissanka, KL Rahul (wk), Nitish Rana, Karun Nair, Axar Patel (c), Tristan Stubbs, Sameer Rizvi, Ashutosh Sharma, Mitchell Starc, Lungi Ngidi, Kuldeep Yadav, T Natarajan.
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