DC vs CSK Preview: 'We are raring to go against CSK,' says Delhi Capitals’ Prithvi Shaw

Visakhapatnam, 09 May 2019: A narrow 2-wicket win against the Sunrisers Hyderabad secured Delhi Capitals’ place in the Qualifier 2 of IPL 2019 where the JSW and GMR co-owned franchise will be playing defending champions Chennai Super Kings here at the ACA-VDCA Stadium on Friday. Delhi Capitals’ young opener Prithvi Shaw believes that “it will be a challenge against CSK” but “his team is ready to do well tomorrow.”

Speaking ahead of the important encounter, Shaw said, “We know that we have not won against CSK this year, but we start tomorrow’s match with a clean slate. It will be a challenge for us, but we are raring to go. They do have some amazing bowlers, both faster ones and spinners, along with a lot of experience, so we need to go back to the drawing board and plan accordingly, but we are very confident of doing well tomorrow.”

The 19-year-old also spoke on his own performance in the Eliminator. He said, “I think when you are not scoring the runs, IPL is a format where you need to get the form back as quickly as possible. I believe that preparation is the best thing to do, and I prepared well for this match. I wasn’t scoring well before, especially in the powerplay overs, but the team continued to believe in me and I am very thankful to them for showing faith in me when I wasn’t doing well.”

Asked to summarize his team’s chase against SRH, Shaw said, “These kinds of games always bring pressure on you, but Rishabh played an amazing knock. Like I have said before, he is one of the best finishers at such a young age, but he couldn’t get the timing on that shot and got out. However, Keemo played a huge hand in taking responsibility and closing out the match.”

Shaw, who has scored 348 runs in 15 innings this season, also spoke about the importance of the powerplay overs. He said, “Personally, I feel the first 6 overs are very important when you are batting. Once you put runs on the board initially, it becomes easier for the people coming in to bat and they can play freely. It will be the same tomorrow especially on this pitch as I felt it was a bit difficult to pull the ball, and the bowlers utilized cutters and slower balls well.”

Looking ahead to the CSK match, Shaw said, “We do not really focus on who we are playing, but instead we look to prepare ourselves in the best way possible to face any team. It is about our preparation, and it has been fantastic this season so I am really looking forward to playing CSK again tomorrow, and hopefully secure our place in the final.”

CSK have defeated the Delhi Capitals in both their earlier matches this season as they first won the away leg in Delhi by 6 wickets by chasing down a target of 148, and then produced a great bowling performance to win by 80 runs, bowling the Capitals all out for 99 runs in 16.2 overs.

The two teams have previously faced each other on 19 occasions in IPL history, with Chennai Super Kings having the upper hand with 13 victories to their name, while Delhi have managed to win only 6 matches.

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