{"id":150822,"date":"2026-04-03T14:33:03","date_gmt":"2026-04-03T20:03:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/newslink360.space\/?p=150822"},"modified":"2026-04-03T14:33:03","modified_gmt":"2026-04-03T20:03:03","slug":"ipl-2026-delhi-capitals-mumbai-indians-keen-to-show-their-prowess-in-afternoon-clash","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/newslink360.space\/?p=150822","title":{"rendered":"IPL 2026: Delhi Capitals, Mumbai Indians keen to show their prowess in afternoon clash"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><br \/>\n<\/p>\n<div id=\"content-body-70820058\" itemprop=\"articleBody\">In a tournament as long as the Indian Premier League, a franchise\u2019s opening fixture isn\u2019t necessarily indicative of how the season will transpire. At this early stage, there is plenty of room for lessons to be gleaned, plans to be fine-tuned and combinations to be tweaked.<\/p>\n<p>That said, a win to begin proceedings certainly settles the nerves and spreads positive vibes. Delhi Capitals and Mumbai Indians, which will meet at the Arun Jaitley Stadium here on Saturday afternoon, will attest after victories in their opening fixtures.<\/p>\n<p><b>Also read | <a href=\"https:\/\/sportstar.thehindu.com\/cricket\/ipl\/gujarat-titans-vs-rajasthan-royals-ipl-2026-shubman-gill-vaibhav-suryavanshi-gt-rr\/article70819665.ece\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Gujarat Titans\u2019 system meets Rajasthan Royals\u2019 disruption<\/a><\/b><\/p>\n<p>While DC overcame a jittery start to a chase of 142 to register a six-wicket win against Lucknow Super Giants, Hardik Pandya\u2019s men never looked in strife in pursuit of 221 against Kolkata Knight Riders.<\/p>\n<p>For the five-time champion, a leaner and fitter Rohit Sharma was in full flow against KKR, scoring 78 and stitching together an opening stand of 148 runs with Ryan Rickelton. With the 38-year-old\u2019s involvement at the international level confined to the 50-over format, he was available for the entirety of MI\u2019s pre-season preparations this time.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cHe joined us on day one of our camp. We did a lot of simulations, we had quite a few practice matches that we played, so he was part of all that. The hand speed was pretty good,\u201d said MI coach Mahela Jayawardene on Friday.<\/p>\n<p>In marked contrast to MI\u2019s opening pair, DC\u2019s top-order appeared shaky at the Ekana Stadium in Lucknow. If Capitals still emerged unscathed, it was owing to Sameer Rizvi and Tristan Stubbs forging a fine alliance from 26 for four.<\/p>\n<p>The surface for Saturday\u2019s fixture is expected to be full of runs. Jayawardene sees it as par for the course in the early part of the campaign. \u201cThe wickets will get slower as the season progresses. You have to let that natural process happen and not worry too much about the first few games,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"publish-time\" id=\"end-of-article\">Published on Apr 03, 2026<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p><br \/>\n<br \/><a href=\"https:\/\/sportstar.thehindu.com\/cricket\/ipl\/delhi-capitals-vs-mumbai-indians-ipl-2026-match-dc-mi-match-8-preview\/article70820058.ece\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Source link <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In a tournament as long as the Indian Premier League, a franchise\u2019s opening fixture isn\u2019t necessarily indicative of how the season will transpire. At this early stage, there is plenty of room for lessons to be gleaned, plans to be fine-tuned and combinations to be tweaked. That said, a win to begin proceedings certainly settles&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":150823,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-150822","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sports"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/newslink360.space\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/05_RVM_3346.jpg","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pgnRh4-DeC","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/newslink360.space\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/150822","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/newslink360.space\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/newslink360.space\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newslink360.space\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newslink360.space\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=150822"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/newslink360.space\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/150822\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newslink360.space\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/150823"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/newslink360.space\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=150822"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newslink360.space\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=150822"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newslink360.space\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=150822"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}