Former India cricketer Ajay Jadeja believes Delhi Capitals (DC) should look at stopping the chopping and changing of their top-order in IPL 2025, while adding that the pace at which KL Rahul and Faf du Plessis batted resulted in them losing out to Royal Challengers Bengaluru (RCB). With five consecutive wins, DC had a phenomenal start to their IPL 2025 campaign. But their performance at their original home ground, Arun Jaitley Stadium, has been disappointing with two losses out of three games.
Their only win here happened via a nail-biting Super Over against the Rajasthan Royals. DC will next take on defending champions Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) on Tuesday, with an aim to get their second home win in New Delhi and keep themselves in contention for the playoffs.
“What they need to address is not to keep chopping and changing too much. They started with Jake Fraser-McGurk – I can’t get pronunciation of his name right, so apologies to him. They started with him for three-four-five games, just because Karun Nair who wasn’t in the team came and did so well.”
“So they went with him as an opener. Then he had three bad games, and they went back to Faf du Plessis, because he was fit again. So that I think is their worry – the uncertainty that they are bringing into the side and KL Rahul is their key player,” said Jadeja, a JioStar expert, to IANS, in a virtual interaction on Monday.
Against RCB, du Plessis, returning from a groin injury and playing for the first time since April 10, struggled to get going and made 22 off 26 balls. Rahul, on the other hand, struggled to break free as RCB spinners forced a squeeze on scoring rate via sufficient help from a two-paced pitch, resulting in him making 41 off 39 balls.
The partnership between du Plessis and Rahul for the third wicket was worth 28 runs off 31 balls, with just one boundary hit. “The last game that you referred to against RCB, was when he had a partnership with Faf du Plessis. He and him (Rahul) probably play at a similar pace. Like we were talking about Virat, Delhi was doing very well till that game where Rahul would do what he does and everyone else around him had to play a different kind of role.”
“When both of them, Faf du Plessis and KL Rahul become important players, then the pace of the game changes and I think that’s where they lost out in the last game. So, if I think I had a finger to point to, I think that’s where DC lost out in the last game and that is what I see at the moment,” added Jadeja.
The outcomes of this week’s and next week’s IPL 2025 matches will be pivotal in determining the four teams qualifying for the playoffs. With the top two teams assured to play in Qualifier 1, Jadeja stated that the pressure is equally high for both the top four (RCB, GT, MI, DC) and the bottom four (CSK, RR, SRH, KKR), though he pointed out the sources of it are very different.
“It’s not just the top four but even the bottom four. The pressures are different of course. One is the pressure of the top four that you mentioned – that we’ve done all the hard work or we’ve gone through two thirds of the tournament if you may call it and done well.”
“So now we should let it go and I think that is a much more of a pressure than somebody at number seven, eight, nine saying, ‘Listen we’ve got nothing to lose, let’s go out there’. So they have a pressure of going out but they have everything to gain and the top guys have everything to lose.”
“Here, the pressure is always with a team or players that have something to lose. So yes, there is a lot of pressure to sustain something but that’s what league tournaments are all about – it’s not a knockout,” he concluded.
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