New Delhi [India], May 8 : As Delhi Capitals (DC) take on Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) at home, the team's spinners Kuldeep Yadav and skipper Axar Patel could target opposition skipper Ajinkya Rahane, who has struggled to score consistently in the tournament so far.
An upbeat KKR, on a hat-trick of wins after a six-match winless run, will be taking on the Capitals, who will be looking to go all out to preserve their fortress which has been breached four times this tournament. Kuldeep, who has had a poor tournament with just seven scalps in 10 matches at an average of over 44 and an economy rate of 10.40, could be crucial in this early match-up against Rahane.
Against Kuldeep, as per ESPNCricinfo, Rahane has a strike rate of just 70.37, having been dismissed twice in five innings. He has scored just 19 runs in 27 balls against Kuldeep, having hit just one four. Against Axar, Rahane's strike rate is way better at 123.52. Rahane has scored 84 runs in 68 balls against Kuldeep, having been dismissed twice in 11 innings. He has hit Axar for eight fours and a six, but the DC skipper has managed to contain his run-scoring well against Rahane.
This season in nine innings, Rahane has scored 205 runs in nine innings at a modest average of 25.62 and a strike rate of 131.41, with a half-century to his name and a best score of 67.
Squads:

Delhi Capitals Squad: Pathum Nissanka, KL Rahul(w), Nitish Rana, Karun Nair, Axar Patel(c), Tristan Stubbs, Sameer Rizvi, Ashutosh Sharma, Mitchell Starc, Kuldeep Yadav, Lungi Ngidi, T Natarajan, Vipraj Nigam, Abishek Porel, Auqib Nabi Dar, David Miller, Dushmantha Chameera, Kyle Jamieson, Rehan Ahmed, Mukesh Kumar, Ajay Jadav Mandal, Prithvi Shaw, Tripurana Vijay, Sahil Parakh, Madhav Tiwari

Kolkata Knight Riders Squad: Ajinkya Rahane(c), Finn Allen, Angkrish Raghuvanshi(w), Rinku Singh, Cameron Green, Rovman Powell, Manish Pandey, Anukul Roy, Sunil Narine, Vaibhav Arora, Kartik Tyagi, Varun Chakaravarthy, Ramandeep Singh, Tejasvi Dahiya, Navdeep Saini, Tim Seifert, Rachin Ravindra, Blessing Muzarabani, Matheesha Pathirana, Rahul Tripathi, Sarthak Ranjan, Prashant Solanki, Saurabh Dubey, Umran Malik, Daksh Kamra.