Playoffs in Delhi Capitals' sights as Kohli comes home

This is the third time this IPL that Delhi Capitals are coming back to their home venue, Feroz Shah Kotla, full of exuberance and positivity. They first did so on the high of having beaten Mumbai Indians in Mumbai. Then they did so having built a three-match winning streak on the road, in Bangalore, Kolkata and Hyderabad. On both occasions they came crashing down thanks largely to a slow and low home surface.

On this homecoming, Capitals are on their highest high. They have won seven out of their 11 matches - teams have previously qualified with seven wins - and are looking for that one win to all but ensure progress to the next round. You might wager they are more or less in, but these wins can take them into the top two, which gives them two shots at making the final.

Up against them is an opposition on a streak itself, defying elimination, which has looked imminent for weeks now. Royal Challengers are hanging by a thread, but are not letting go of that thread. In their last three wins in a row, they have beaten Chennai Super Kings even though MS Dhoni needed two off the last ball, and Kings XI Punjab, who won the first 17 overs of each innings.

It's streak v streak now; one team is gunning for the top spot, the other fighting for another match of life. At the heart of it will be adaptation to a slow surface and an accurate forecast of the dew. In the last set of matches in Delhi, Mumbai Indians defended easily with no dew, and Capitals chased relatively easily thanks to the dew.

Dale Steyn won't be coming back for Royal Challengers after he injected life into their campaign with a mid-season entry. His shoulder injury has cast a shadow over his participation in the World Cup too. That isn't the only absence RCB will worry about. Moeen Ali too is back home for a preparatory camp with England ahead of the World Cup.

Capitals went to Bangalore, restricted the hosts to 149 and then chased it down without much bother and with seven balls to spare.

Delhi Capitals 1 Shikhar Dhawan, 2 Prithvi Shaw, 3 Shreyas Iyer (capt.), 4 Rishabh Pant, 5 Colin Ingram, 6 Sherfane Rutherford, 7 Axar Patel, 8 Amit Mishra, 9 Kagiso Rabada, 10 Ishant Sharma, 11 Sandeep Lamichhane

Royal Challengers Bangalore 1 Parthiv Patel (wk), 2 Virat Kohli (capt.), 3 AB de Villiers, 4 Shimron Hetmyer/Colin de Grandhomme, 5 Akshdeep Nath, 6 Marcus Stoinis, 7 Washington Sundar/Pawan Negi, 8 Umesh Yadav, 9 Tim Southee, 10 Yuzvendra Chahal, 11 Nitin Saini

Stats that matter