The third game of the tournament will see Delhi Daredevils play the Victoria Bushrangers at the Feroz Shah Kotla in Delhi. This is a Group D game, which, to me will be played between two of the pre-tournament favourites.

The Daredevils will have a new captain from what they had in the previous two editions of the Indian Premier League. Virender Sehwag had resigned from the captaincy and passed it on to Gautam Gambhir, who would lead the side in this Champions League T20 tournament. However, the worry for Delhi may be the presence of Sehwag itself. For one, he had been on a road to recovery from his shoulder injury, and had played in the Irani Trophy. However, after that, he had missed most part of the second half of the game with a fever and it remains to be seen whether he will be fit enough to feature in the game.

With Paul Collingwood out with his buttock injury, it will now be left to the likes of Gambhir, Tillakaratne Dilshan and A.B. de Villiers to carry their team through. They also possess two very high quality spinners in Amit Mishra and Daniel Vettori who could get their side going with the wickets in the middle and put the brakes on the scoring for Victoria.

However, in Victoria, they couldn't have hoped for a more challenging start. After all, the side is being led by Cameron White, who is one of the better first class cricketers. He has slowly made a mark at the international level as well, and has been one of the most successful T20 captains in the world, with three tournament wins in the KFC Big Bash T20 tournament. The fourth one that he captained had his side end runners-up last year.

Apart from White, there are two other cricketers who the Victoria side will want to unleash against Delhi. One is David Hussey and the other batsman is Brad Hodge, two of the most prolific batsmen in this format of the game, and the ones who have a game which is suited to the pitches in India.

Their bowling is something that could be a little bit of an issue, and they could miss a good quality spinner in their ranks. Andrew McDonald will bowl his medium-pacers, but more importantly, he could be used to pick on the Delhi players with whom he had shared the dressing room for the previous edition of the IPL. All in all, the Daredevils are marginally ahead thanks to their all-round bowling attack.

Tag :- Andrew McDonald   Brad Hodge   Cameron White   Champions League   Delhi Daredevils   Gautam Gambhir   Paul Collingwood   Tillakaratne Dilshan   Virender Sehwag