IPL Boundary Blackjack - Round 1, Match 5 - LSG v DC

Last but not least, it's LSG v DC, the 2 sides that have had to watch and wait for the other 8 franchises to play first before having a go themselves.

Both teams had strong starts to the 2025 campaign, particularly the Capitals but ultimately fell away towards the back end of the season to miss out on play-off places.

With so little to choose between the bulk of squads in the IPL, let's see if they can get those extra 1 or 2 wins necessary to change an 8th place finish into a 4th place finish.

The Super Giants have maintained the core of their batting unit with the one major change being the release of David Miller who endured a tough 2025. The South African was picked up by none other than DC so gets an immediate opportunity to show LSG what they are missing.

In his place has come Josh Inglis who had an effective campaign for PBKS last time out and is likely to find himself batling for a middle order birth against Lucknow's other overseas stars. They include Pooran, Markram, Marsh and Breetzke.

The stats above show LSG's problem last season was that their Indian batsmen didn't really deliver. Rishab Pant scored a century in LSG's final game of the season in what was ultimately a dead rubber having looked very short of form prior to that. His side desperately need more runs when it counts from their captain this season.

Ayush Badoni too has failed to really move from promising youngster to consistent run getter. With 56 IPL matches behind him, you feel like this could be a make or break season for the diminutive right-hander.

LSG have added rookie IPL batters Mukul Choudhary and Akshat Raghuwanshi to their roster with the hope that at least one of them can bring their domestic form into the big show and provide greater depth to their batting options.

Ultimately LSG's reliance on overseas stars to do most of the scoring last season also meant they were limited with their bowling options. They have brought in Nortje and Hasaranga during the auction, both of whom are experienced operators in this form of the game, but how much cricket they get with be a direct consequence of how many of the 4 overseas slots go to the batters.

Mohammed Shami has been brought in to bolster the seam bowling ranks and joins a group of capable local seamers in Mayank Yadav, Avesh Khan and Mohsin Khan. The big question mark for me over all 4 of these guys is fitness.

Mohsin missed all of last season, Shami missed all of the season before that and Mayank Yadav, their most expensive bowling asset, has only managed 6 appearances in the last 2 seasons. If you get those 4 on the pitch and performing at their peak then it looks like a really good bowling unit, if not then it might be a long season!

Digvesh Rathi was arguably the break out bowling star of IPL 2025 and LSG will be relying on him to lead their slow bowling options again this year. He does get support from the likes of Siddharth and Shahbaz Ahmed while Markram's offies can be useful as well. However, wicket taking in the middle phase is going to be Rathi's primary role.

Balance or a lack of it is LSG's primary weakness. They don't really have any all-rounders given Mitch Marsh's inability to bowl these days and the fact that Hasaranga may struggle to get a game. Any time they look to strengthen one element of their side, they'll invariably weaken another.

As noted above, DC started like a train iin 2025 but just fell away at crucial moments in the 2nd half of last season and were unfortunate to have a couple of rain interrupted matches.

There is still plenty to like about their team with strong batting and bowling options capable of winning games in all conditions.

KL Rahul will be the bedrock upon which their batting is built but their is plenty of Indian talent alongside him. Abishek Porel offers the kind of attacking intent that the former is regularly criticised for not showing while DC have brought in Nitish Rana, a Dehli man through and through, to add quality and experience to their side.

Karun Nair, one of the forgotten men of Indian cricket, played a couple of brilliant innings last season and perhaps can be an inspiration for Prithi Shaw to reestablish his once promising career.

Alongside the aforementioned Miller, DC have added Sri Lankan Nissanka who had an excellent World Cup alongside Tristan Stubbs who has established himself as an ever present in this DC side over the last couple of seasons.

With the likes of Ashutosh Sharma and Sameer Rizvi to add even more firepower towards the back end of the innings then you'd say that DC have plenty of options and talent to get runs on the board!

Defending them will be the responsibility of their 2 left-arm spinners in Kuldeep Yadav who had a brilliant IPL 2025, and captain Axar Patel whose all-round capabilities offer even greater depth to this DC side.

Seam bowling was a bit of an issue last season and the Capitals will begin IPL 2026 without the injured Mitchel Starc. Chameera, Jamieson and Ngidi get to stake their claims ahead of his arrival.

Mukesh Kumar was expensive at times last season and Natarajan barely bowled. At least one of those 2 needs to come to the party in 2026 if DC are to push into the top 4.

DC have brought in Auqib Nabi who has a remarkable record in red ball cricket but would be making his IPL debut if he were to get a chance this season.

Overall, with the length of their batting line-up, I think DC will be good fun to watch and capable of putting some big scores on the board. Whether they quite have the attack to defend those scores on a consistent basis remains to be seen.

Another newer ground, the Ekana was not easy to score runs on during the first couple of IPL seasons here but 2025 saw a marked increase in scoring and boundaries.

Like a lot of the newer stadiums, it does have both red and black soil pitches for the curators to choose from. The red soil tends to be slower and lower and offer a bit of turn while the black soil can have a bit more pace and bounce.

If we get a decent track then both these teams have the fire power to put big runs on the board!

Position	Player	Points	Hits	Busts
1	@bitandi	115	3	0
2	@imfarhad	103	2	1
3	@blockchainfpl	100	2	1
4	@r1c4rd0	98	2	1
5	@wildlifelover	96	2	1
6	@tengolotodo	96	2	1
7	@ynwa.andree	90	2	1
8	@gwajnberg	89	3	0
9	@talesfrmthecrypt	84	2	1
10	@valentin86	82	2	1
11	@doombot75	82	2	1
12	@niallon11	81	2	1
13	@tortangkahoy	79	3	0
14	@blanchy	76	3	0
15	@hatdogsensei	74	3	0
16	@onemanonewrite	74	3	0
17	@bozz.sports	72	2	1
18	@tsnaks	70	2	1
19	@fullcoverbetting	68	2	1
20	@shitsignals	52	1	2
21	@kennybot	50	1	2
22	@uwelang	41	2	1
23	@workingdad	30	1	0
24	@sportsgeek	20	2	1
25	@dewabrata	0	0	0
26	@fnzcmd	0	0	0

We had 2 busts in the first 2 matches followed by 17 in match 3 as the low scoring contest between RR and CSK caught most players out.

Those that did survive made big moves up the table including @bitandi who has taken top spot and @gwajnberg whose more conservative picks mean that he's at least put points on the board every round.

It's still very tight across the table. There are only 4 matches left in this round so let's see if a few sides make bold calls over the next couple of games in order to get themselves back into the mix at the very top.

A reminder - you can update your individual predictions as many times as you like before the match starts! So a good tactic would be to make a prediction for all matches in the round now and then amend them closer to the game itself. That way you don't score zero for failing to have a guess full stop!