(Cricket news) Delhi Capitals have had a disastrous start to their campaign this season as they have lost all five matches so far, but their captain David Warner still seems optimistic. In previous editions teams have bounced back well after losing five on the trot but Capitals are facing off-field issues also. A number of DC players lost their bats and other equipment in transit from Bengaluru.

Capitals have chopped and changed their playing XI in their five games, their batting remains the biggest letdown this season. Warner is amongst the top run scorers in the league as he’s got three fifties but his strike rate is only 116.92. While his opening partner Prithvi Shaw has been enduring a poor run, with 15 being his highest score this season. Warner and Shaw have only scored 104 runs in five matches. Their bowling on the other hand has shown a glimmer of hope led by Anrich Nortje.

Kolkata Knight Riders on the other hand have just scored a total of 70 runs from the opening partnership. KKR have lost the most wickets in the powerplay and have not hit a single six in that phase. The KKR think tank needs to give Jason Roy and Litton Das the opportunity as Venkatesh Iyer has been masking the failures of the openers. In the previous match against Mumbai Indians he contributed to more than 60% of the runs.

Spin to win has been Knight Riders’ mantra to success but they have particularly a hard time when their spinners don’t succeed. Their fast bowling trio of Lockie Ferguson, Umesh Yadav and Shardul Thakur have been very expensive and also they have taken only nine wickets combined which is the least among all teams this season.

Delhi Capitals

If Capitals bat first, they will name three overseas players and swap out Prithvi Shaw and Mustafizur Rahman for the Impact player. We could see Axar Patel batting higher up as a new strategy

Capitals XII: 1 David Warner (capt), 2 Prithvi Shaw, 3 Mitchell Marsh, 4 Yash Dhull, 5 Manish Pandey, 6 Axar Patel, 7 Lalit Yadav, 8 Aman Khan, 9 Abishek Porel (wk), 10 Kuldeep Yadav, 11 Anrich Nortje, 12 Mustafizur Rahman.

Kolkata Knight Riders

With Rahmanullah Gurbaz in poor form, Knight Riders will most likely bring in the experienced Jason Roy. They could also bring in the in-form Litton Das also instead of a Lockie Ferguson. Vaibhav Arora has had a good domestic season and could be involved in the playing XI. Venkatesh Iyer and Suyash Sharma are likely the Impact Player swaps.

Knight Riders XII: 1 Jason Roy/Rahmanullah Gurbaz, 2 N Jagadeesan (wk), 3 Venkatesh Iyer, 4 Nitish Rana (capt), 5 Rinku Singh, 6 Andre Russell, 7 Sunil Narine, 8 Shardul Thakur, 9 Umesh Yadav, 10 Lockie Ferguson, 11 Varun Chakaravarthy, 12 Suyash Sharma.

Also read: LSG skipper KL Rahul fined Rs 12 lakhs for maintaining slow overrate