Inform Delhi Take on Confident Kolkata Knight Riders

Pune: Two teams with matching firepower will come face to face when table-toppers Delhi Daredevils take on second-placed Kolkata Knight Riders in what promises to be a high-voltage first qualifier of the controversy-ridden IPL on Tuesday.

In a season which has been marred by unsavoury incidents off the field, the IPL's cricketing climax promises to be quite a treat with heavyweights making the last four.

And no better than DD and KKR to kick off the business end of the event as the two teams have without doubt been the most consistent performers in the Twenty20 league this season.

Both the teams boast of explosive batting line-ups. Their bowling attacks have also done exceptionally well in a format which is considered punishing for the bowlers.

When the two teams came face to face in the league stage, the honours were shared with Delhi triumphing in Kolkata and KKR returning the favour when they visited the capital.

On paper, the sides match up pretty well and it promises to be a battle of equals. If Delhi has the brutality of captain Virender Sehwag and David Warner, Kolkata have the answer in Brendon McCullum and skipper Gambhir.

In fact, both the teams have equally potent all-rounders in the line-up with Irfan Pathan rediscovering his old form for Delhi and Bangladeshi Shakib Al Hasan doing the job for Kolkata.

On the bowling front, Delhi have a pace ace in South African Morne Morkel, who has not just been miserly in conceding runs but has also been wrecker-in-chief when it comes to picking up wickets. Ably supported by Umesh Yadav and Varun Aaron, Delhi's pace attack has looked lethal with Morkel at the helm.

Kolkata also have their own match-winning bowler in mystery spinner Narine, who has been consistency personified. Kolkata have an intimidating pace battery with Australian Brett Lee likely to make a comeback after sitting out in the last three games. But with the likes of mystery spinner Sunil Narine, Iqbal Abdulla and Shakib in the rank, Kolkata will definitely have an upper hand over Delhi in the spin department.

Teams from

Delhi Daredevils: Virender Sehwag (captain), Mahela Jayawardene, Ajit Agarkar, Irfan Pathan, Umesh Yadav, Puneet Bisht, Robin Bist, Naman Ojha (wk), Shahbaz Nadeem, Venugopal Rao, Vikas Mishra, Yogesh Nagar, Zafir Patel, Sunny Gupta, Tejashwi Yadav, Aavishkar Salvi, Kuldeep Raval, Manpreet Juneja, Pawan Negi, Prashant Naik, Aaron Finch, Andre Russell, Doug Bracewell, Glenn Maxwell, Gulam Bodi, Morne Morkel, Roelf van der Merwe.

Kolkata Knight Riders: Gautam Gambhir (captain), Brendon McCullum (wk), Jacques Kallis, Manoj Tiwary, Yusuf Pathan, Debabrata Das, Laxmi Ratan Shukla, Rajat Bhatia, Sunil Narine, Brett Lee, Iqbal Abdulla, Chirag Jani, Iresh Saxena, Jaidev Unadkat, Manvinder Bisla, Pradeep Sangwan, Sanju Samson, Sarabjit Singh Ladda, Mohammad Shami Ahmed, Eoin Morgan, Marchant de Lange, Ryan ten Doeschate and Shakib Al Hasan.

Stats and trivia

• Warner and Sehwag have the highest strike-rates this season, 172.02 and 164.62
• Knight Riders have scored the least runs this season as a team, 2150 in 15 games compared to Daredevils' 2365 in 16.
• Knight Riders have conceded just 6.99 runs an over, by far the lowest this season. The next best are Mumbai Indians, who have gone for 7.54. Daredevils have given away 7.73.

Match facts
Tuesday May 22, 2012 (day/night)
Start time 20:00 local (14:30 GMT)