After first up losses the Rajasthan Royals and Delhi Daredevils will look to launch their IPL in Jaipur on Wednesday night.

This will be a special occasion for the Royals, not only because it will be their first home game of the season, but because it will be the team’s long-awaited return to their fortress of Sawai Mansingh Stadium for the first time since 2013.

The Royals’ season-opener against Sunrisers Hyderabad was a largely forgettable outing, and the team will be keen to make amends and open their account at their home ground.

The Delhi Daredevils come into this match after being blown away by KXIP’s KL Rahul.

DD posted 166-7 – a respectable total on most occasions, but were caught off guard as Lokesh Rahul got stuck into their bowlers and set a new mark for the fastest half-century in IPL history with 50 off just 14 balls.

Both teams would want to quickly erase the opening game from their memory, but they would do well to take learnings of deficiencies in that game and work towards fixing them.

On paper, the Daredevils look the stronger team; will they be able to translate potential to performance?

Short needs to go big

D’Arcy Short came into this IPL season with a reputation to live up to; the Australian – the top run-getter in T20s so far this year – has a batting strike-rate of 150.38.

RR need him to live up to this billing and see the team off to the blazing starts he has often given teams when playing elsewhere.

Sanju Samson batted well in the first half of his knock in Hyderabad before taking his foot off the accelerator; RR will be served well if he can bat in fifth gear throughout, for the team has depth in batting and can afford their batsmen to play aggressively.

Ben Stokes, the most-expensive signing at the IPL Player Auction 2018, hasn’t been in the best of batting form recently, but RR will hope he can start hitting a few balls out of the park soon.

Colin Munro and Rishabh Pant, who should be in the top three, are the most destructive batsmen in the Delhi Daredevils line-up.

Munro has scored his 400 T20 runs this year at a strike-rate of 189.57, while Rishabh Pant’s career strike-rate of 161.59 is the best among all Indian batsmen with more than 1000 runs in T20 cricket.

DD will need fireworks from the pair.

Under-performing attacks

While the Rajasthan Royals bowling attack had plenty of variety, that did not translate to success on the pitch; their bowlers managed to pick up only a solitary wicket in the match against SRH.

Ben Stokes isn’t completely fit and might not bowl four overs always; hence Jaydev Unadkat needs to step up to be the leader of the pack.

DD’s bowling attack has weakened with Kagiso Rabada being ruled out of the season because of injury.

With that development, the burden of being the team’s bowling spearhead has fallen on the shoulders of Chris Morris, who will need to return rich hauls.

Amit Mishra – the second-highest wicket-taker in the IPL – has a fabulous record against RR (26 wickets in 16 matches at an average of 16.38) and he will be expected to add to his tally.

Likely line-ups:

Rajasthan Royals

Ajinkya Rahane (c), D’Arcy Short, Sanju Samson, Ben Stokes,  Rahul Tripathi, Jos Buttler, Krishnappa Gowtham, Shreyas Gopal, Dhawal Kulkarni, Jaydev Unadkat, Ben Laughlin

Delhi Daredevils

Colin Munro, Gautam Gambhir (c), Shreyas Iyer, Vijay Shankar, Rishabh Pant, Rahul Tewatia, Chris Morris, Daniel Christian, Amit Mishra, Trent Boult, Mohammed Shami.