Jaipur: Rajasthan Royals and Delhi Capitals will step out on the Sawai Mansingh Stadium on Friday on the back of two contrasting results. While Royals had a near perfect game en route to handing the season’s first loss to table toppers Punjab Kings in New Chandigarh on Tuesday, Delhi Capitals crashed to an embarrassing defeat against Royal Challengers Bengaluru a day before in their own backyard.After cracking the Punjab Kings code on their home turf, Royals are high on confidence and would like to boost their chances of entering the playoffs with yet another win against struggling DC, who have lost their last three matches in a row.The best thing to happen for the Riyan Parag-led side was the success of the middle order. The top-order of Yashasvi Jaiswal, Vaibhav Sooryawanshi and Dhruv Jurel did the heavy-lifting at the start of the season but now things seem to be evening out.The clinical finishing by Donovan Ferreira and ‘impact’ sub Shubham Dubey helped their team chase down a challenging 223-run target in the previous outing to notch up their sixth win of the season in nine matches. The tense win not only helped RR stay in the top-4 but also gave them much-needed momentum as they approached the business end of the tournament.Riyan Parag played a brief but impactful knock against Punjab Kings that could provide a timely boost to his confidence. Even head coach Kumar Sangakkara acknowledged the little cameo of the skipper against Punjab Kings. “Riyan played a very crucial innings which really gave the momentum to the chase. His brief knock came at a critical time. Donovan and Shubham then carried on to help us carve out a big win,” Sangakkara said.On the other hand, DC find themselves on the backfoot, having registered only three wins from eight ties so far. Placed seventh in the standings, the Axar Patel-led side will be eager to arrest the slide with a win on Friday.If the visitors have to keep their chances of playoffs alive, they have to forget the RCB defeat as quickly as possible and make a fresh start.Starc in for Delhi CapitalsPace ace Mitchell Starc is set to return after getting clearance from Cricket Australia. With Lungi Ngidi still unavailable due to his head injury, Starc’s inclusion comes as a timely boost.
