With two back to back clinical wins in away games against Lucknow Super Giants and Gujarat Giants by an identical margin of six wickets under their belt, the spirited JSW and GMR co-owned franchise Delhi Capitals (DC) will look to complete a hat-trick of wins when they take on a high flying Sunrisers Hyderabad (SRH) at Arun Jaitley Stadium in New Delhi on Saturday.

Speaking about playing the home match in Delhi for the first time in the season, Delhi Capitals' Head Coach Ricky Ponting said, "We're really excited to be back. It's the home ground. We want to make sure this becomes a fortress for us when opposition teams come here. So, we're excited to be here and hopefully, we can start our home campaign well tomorrow."

"On the back of the WPL, we wanted to ensure that we had some grass back on and the wickets could potentially play a bit better than they have done for us in the last couple of years," he further added while talking about the pitch condition at Arun Jaitley Stadium. The fact Rishabh Pant’s DC had won just one of their first five matches in the initial part of the tournament and are currently placed sixth with six points will only add to their confidence level.

Speaking about the match-up against the Sunrisers Hyderabad, Ponting said, "We don't mind having a shootout tomorrow if it's a high-scoring game, so be it. We know and expect that they're going to play the way they've played so far in the tournament, which has been going hard at the top of the order with the bat, and trying to post a big first innings total. So, we're happy to try and match them in that. We think we've got as good a batting line-up if not better batting line-up than theirs."

Head to Head the DC and SRH share huge rivalry in IPL with the later leading marginally 11-12 record (including one Super over finish which DC won in 2021). In recent times DC however have won five of the last six matches against SRH. However their home record suggests otherwise. DC have lost eight out of their 14 home matches.

Ponting also provided an update on David Warner's fitness (who at one time was SRH skipper), and said, "He was 85 or 90 per cent fit a couple of days ago. We'd expect that there'd be a little bit more improvement from him today. But he'll have to do a lot of batting today against fast bowling to make sure that the pain he had last week is not anymore. So, hopefully, he's fit and ready."

Expected Playing XI

Delhi Capitals: David Warner, Jake Fraser-McGurk, Abishek Porel, Rishabh Pant(Capt / WK), Tristan Stubbs, Axar Patel, Lalit Yadav, Kuldeep Yadav, Anrich Nortje, Khaleel Ahmed and Mukesh Kumar

Sunrisers Hyderabad: Abhishek Sharma, Travis Head, Aiden Markram, Heinrich Klaasen(WK), Abdul Samad, Nitish Reddy, Shahbaz Ahmed, Pat Cummins(Capt), Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Mayank Markande and T Natarajan

Photo above :  DC Head Coach Ponting along with skipper Rishabh Pant aim to make the best of familiar surroundings for the remainder of IPL season