Umesh Yadav wreaked havoc with a five-wicket haul after Dinesh Karthik hit a sublime unbeaten hundred as India demolished Australia by 243 runs in their final Champions Trophy warm-up match in Cardiff on Tuesday.
Both DC and RCB have looked solid so far and are placed atop the standings with three wins out of four games each.
Senior pacer Ishant Sharma said that the Test series win over Australia earlier this year gave the Indian team a different kind of self-belief.
How the IPL teams have shaped up after the auction.
The lack of runs from their Indian batters -- Prithvi Shaw (106 runs in 8 matches), Manish Pandey (160 runs in 10 games), Sarfaraz Khan (53 runs in 4 games) and Lalit Yadav (66 runs from six games) -- proved a big factor in another below-par season for Delhi Capitals.
Lauding Chennai Super Kings opener Brendon McCullum's unbeaten 100 in his side's second consecutive win in Indian Premier League-8, SunRisers Hyderabad mentor VVS Laxman said the New Zealender's first ton of the season was a 'special innings'.
Bhuvneshwar Kumar was literally a forgotten man a couple of days ago. He got to bowl just nine out of the 141.5 overs that were bowled in Australia's first innings. But his three-wicket burst in the second innings has left Australia in a mess and put India firmly in the driver's seat to push for a victory.
Indian captain MS Dhoni is confident that his inexperienced bowling attack will deliver in the four-Test series against Australia which starts on December 26.
Following Monday's selection, Rajneesh Gupta presents the Test career figures of the touring party along with the players' performance against Australia.
The match, at the Dubai International Cricket Stadium, will also be a face-off between skippers KL Rahul and Shreyas Iyer, both seen as future India captaincy material.
Thrust into the leadership role, a completely transformed Rishabh Pant carries a lot of hope and responsibility on his shoulders as Delhi Capitals aim to build on the success of the last edition in the UAE, where they finished runners-up to Mumbai Indians.
Photos from Day 5 of the 3rd Test between India and Sri Lanka in Colombo in Tuesday
Playing two medium pacers on a drab Chennai wicket didn't make sense. Australia at least could say pace is their strength, but for Team India it made no sense.
Ahead of the four-Test series against Australia, pacer Ishant Sharma says it is vital to learn from whatever India did right on past tours, focus on that and keep doing the same.
Harbhajan Singh, who was dropped for the ODI series against England, has been ignored for the first Test against the West Indies, beginning November 8 at the Ferozeshah Kotla, in Delhi.
The first half an hour saw only 5 runs being scored and that showed the determination in both Taylor and Williamson's approach. While Jasprit Bumrah could have bowled slightly better in the conditions, Shami and Ishant kept trying to add to the tension as they maintained a disciplined approach. It was about who breaks first.
A confident Delhi are coming off two back-to-back victories against Royal Challengers Bangalore and a strong Kolkata Knight Riders outfit.
Kohli surpassed Mahendra Singh Dhoni to become the most successful Indian Test captain.
Mahendra Singh Dhoni returned to the team after missing the first two matches.
India squandered a rollicking start and lost the plot towards the end as they went down to New Zealand by nine runs in a warm-up match ahead of the World Twenty20 at Lord's on Monday. Chasing 171 for victory, India rode on sterling knocks from Rohit Sharma (36), Suresh Raina (45) and Ravindra Jadeja (41 not out) to cruise to what seemed an imminent win before eventually ending up with 161 for six in their 20 overs.
Images of the third day's play of the second Test between India and Sri Lanka being played in Colombo.
Team India has never fared so badly in recent years. Not only have they been battered in England, losing the Test series 4-0, but all their top players kept picking up some injury or the other.
Pacers Umesh Umesh and Ishant Sharma shared four wickets between them in absence of injured R Aswhin as Essex batsmen made India toil hard by reaching 237 for five on the second day of the three-day practice game, in Chelmsford, on Thursday.
Virat Kohli and Jonathan Trott were involved in a verbal duel during the fourth day of the final Test between India and England in Nagpur on Sunday.
Bumrah did not manage to take a wicket on the second day of the first Test
The 'Impact Player' rule will be used differently by different outfits but truth be told, DC do not have enough players with X-factor in its ranks.
Images from the third One-Day International between India and Sri Lanka in Cuttack on Monday.
Delhi are enduring a poor start to the season as they have lost all their four games in IPL 2023 so far.
Even as England captain Andrew Strauss tries to solve the Zaheer puzzle, Bikash Mohapatra presents a few other batsmen who have struggled against 32-year-old left-arm seamer.
Virender Sehwag's looked pretty rusty during his first session at the Delhi Ranji team's nets, where seasoned pros like Ashish Nehra and Ishant Sharma, and other net bowlers, troubled him with pace and bounce.
Virender Sehwag would lead a star-studded Delhi line-up comprising the likes of Gautam Gambhir, Virat Kohli, Ishant Sharma when they take on Uttar Pradesh in the Ranji Trophy opening round away game at Ghaziabad from November 2-5.
North Zone advanced to the semi-finals of the Duleep Trophy cricket tournament by virtue of their 320-run first innings lead as the inconsequential fourth and final day's play ended with West Zone losing two wickets in their second essay in Chennai.
Shikhar Dhawan remained unbeaten on 99 after Ishant Sharma returned a four-wicket haul as India A thrashed Bengal by eight wickets in the opening cricket match of the NKP Salve Challenger Trophy, in Rajkot on Saturday.
A special CBI court in Godhra on Saturday granted the probe agency four-day custody of Jay Jalaram School's principal Purushottam Sharma, teacher Tushar Bhatt, and middlemen Vibhor Anand and Arif Vohra, all of whom are alleged to be involved in irregularities in the May 5 NEET-UG exam in Godhra.
Delhi's spinner Chetanya Nanda claimed three wickets on the opening day of the four-day Ranji Trophy Elite Group match in Dharamsala on Saturday.
Chennai Super Kings coach Stephen Fleming on Saturday exuded confidence that the defending champions have enough firepower in their batting to take on Deccan Chargers pace attack which played havoc against Kochi Tuskers Kerala in their last IPL match.
Australia have been harping that the dot balls and maidens they have been stringing together against India is a reason for their dominance in the ongoing Test series but statistics are not as conclusive as it would appear.
Faced with a players' revolt, the Delhi Ranji team started its preparatory camp for the upcoming domestic season without seven players though officials insisted that unrest against the DDCA was not the reason for their absence. After Virender Sehwag's outburst against "nepotism and corruption" in the Delhi District and Cricket Association (DDCA), seven players, including pacer Ishant Sharma and opener Gautam Gambhir, skipped the opening day of the camp.
Images from Day of the tour match between Cricket Australia Chairman's XI and the touring Indians, in Canberra.
Fast bowler Umesh Yadav, who started his IPL career with the Delhi franchise, returned to the Delhi camp after being acquired for his base price of Rs 1 crore in the IPL Auction in February.
