The Delhi Daredevils have played two decent games, coming as close as they could have come to picking up victories, yet they continue that stare at the abyss with 11 defeats in a row in the IPL.
DD will look to stop that losing run – the joint highest in IPL history with the Pune Warriors India – in Pune when they play the Kings XI Punjab, a team in buoyant mood after a comfortable win over the Mumbai Indians.
The KXIP were quite impressive in their win, a much-needed one as well after their opening defeat to the marauding Rajasthan Royals, over MI with both the bowling and batting doing reasonably well.
"It was a good win and got the momentum going," said KXIP bowling coach Joe Dawes. "Hopefully we can carry that through the rest of the tournament."
The Royals were the bane of the Delhi Daredevils as well in their last game, hitting a boundary off the last ball to clinch victory and break DD hearts at the Feroz Shah Kotla.
Had they not been on a nine-match losing run heading into IPL 2015, the Daredevils would have won at least one, if not both, of their opening games.
Ironically, both their matches in this season have finished with a four off the last ball, but such is their luck at the moment that when Morkel hit a boundary against CSK, it meant a loss by one run, and when Tim Southee did the same for the Royals, the result was another loss for the side from Delhi.
"We got so close in the last couple of games, we could have won the CSK game and the last game as well," said Angelo Mathews. "We got so close to the line but just couldn't hold on.
"It's still the start of the season, we can still turn it around and the boys are doing really good. The environment is great. We are enjoying our cricket and that's how it should be. We are going to try and bounce back and bounce back hard."
For the Daredevils to bounce back against a seriously strong side in Kings XI, they need that moment of serious inspiration. A Yuvraj Singh or a Mathews to play a knock of ridiculous worth, or a Nathan Coulter-Nile or Imran Tahir to produce a spell that will send the Kings XI Punjab batting reeling.
Coulter-Nile, Tahir and Amit Mishra have done fairly well with the ball so far in IPL 2015, but they need more help, and unfortunately, that help will not come in the shape of a Zaheer Khan or a Mohammed Shami for a while yet, with both still struggling with injuries.
While Tahir and Mishra will probably be played with caution by the Kings XI Punjab batsmen – who do not go by the name of Glenn Maxwell, that is – KXIP will target the other bowlers, and how those bowlers do will have a big influence on the result.
Having said that, however, T20 is a game dominated by batsmen, and time is ripe for Yuvraj Singh, the man who went for big bucks, and then some, to step up. Yuvraj has timed the ball reasonably well, but he hasn't been there long enough to make an impact, and an impact he must make if the Daredevils are to keep the losing run to eleven.
Where to Watch Live
Kings XI Punjab vs Delhi Daredevils is set to begin at 8 pm IST (3.30 pm BST, 10.30 am ET). The match will be shown live in India on Sony Six, Sony Max, Sony Kix and Sony Aath, while the live streaming option is on Hotstar and Starsports online.
Audience in the UK can live stream the match online on Sky Go and Watch Sky Sports while the IPL 2015 action will be shown live on Sky Sports 1. Catch the game live in the US on ESPN and ESPN Cricket.
The match can be live streamed online by viewers around the world on Cricket Gateway.
