Top contender for India's Test captaincy, will be the cynosure of all eyes as IPL action returns to the Arun Jaitley Stadium on Sunday evening.

The Gill-led Gujarat Titans (16 points from 11 games) take on hosts Delhi Capitals, led by Axar Patel.

Delhi in fifth position

GT’s assistant coach-cum-batting coach , who came for the match-eve press conference, was all praise for Gill’s leadership ability. “Gill has been fantastic [as GT skipper]. I don’t need to mention anything about it. Going forward, what the talks are, I don’t know, but for GT, he has been a fantastic captain. He
has been handling the situation well with the guys,” said Patel. DC are in fifth position after 11 matches with six wins, four losses and one no result against Sunrisers Hyderabad on May 5 due to rain.

Parthiv Patel. Pic/Satej Shinde

Stubbs, Faf return

DC will be without Mitchell Starc, Jake Fraser-McGurk (replaced by Mustafizur Rahman, who will be available from May 18-24) and Donovan Ferreira. The absence of Starc is a big blow for DC. Starc is DC’s highest wicket-taker so far this season with 14 wickets in 11 matches at 26.14. South Africa’s Tristan Stubbs too has confirmed his return, but Stubbs will be available only for the rest of the league phase, after which, he would be leaving for the World Test Championship final.

DC’s leg-spinning all-rounder Vipraj Nigam said, “It will be hard to replace Starc, but hopefully, it won’t impact us too much. Whatever we had planned at the start of the season, we will stick to that.”

For DC, among the batsmen, Faf du Plessis returns — he has played six matches so far and scored a total of 168 runs with a highest score of 62. Even though du Plessis has not been at his best, his presence will boost the team’s morale.

Bangladesh’s Mustafizur Rahman will fill up for Starc in DC’s remaining three league-phase games, but not the Playoffs, should DC make it to that stage.

GT’s dominant top-order

Meanwhile, the break would have led GT to do some soul-searching after their last game against Mumbai Indians, where GT’s middle-order saw them through. Till that game, GT’s top-order of Gill, Sai Sudharsan and Jos Buttler had been doing all the scoring.

For GT, Buttler (available till the league stage ends and to be replaced by Kusal Mendis in the Playoffs), Kagiso Rabada (available till the league stage ends), Sherfane Rutherford, Rashid Khan, Karim Janat, Dasun Shanaka, Gerald Coetzee are available. “We know he [Buttler] won’t be there [for Playoffs]. He has been a
great performer. He will be here for three games. After that we will see what we have to do,” said Patel.