Why is everyone praising R Ashwin's captaincy?
Well, first, he put his captaincy in the spotlight by saying he was going to be unpredictable. Second, he's taken a team that finished eighth, eighth and fifth in their last three IPL seasons to the top of the table, and his decisions have had a lot to do with that success.
Defending just 143 against Delhi Daredevils, he started off with a great Powerplay. Kings XI are one of only two teams this season to concede at less than eight runs per over in the first six. While Sunrisers Hyderbad, the best bowling team in the Powerplay, have relied on the excellence of Bhuvneshwar Kumar and Billy Stanlake up front, Ashwin has changed it up between spin and pace depending on the opposition. Daredevils had Gautam Gambhir, who is striking at just 70.00 against pace this IPL, and IPL debutant Prithvi Shaw opening, so Ashwin smartly opened with seamers Ankit Rajpoot and Barinder Sran and then brought in Andrew Tye in the fourth over. He bowled out Rajpoot, whose economy rate is 7.72 in the first eight overs of IPL games compared to 12.33 in the death, at one go. By the end of the sixth over, the seamers had struck three crucial blows.
What starting with pace also did was keep the dangerous Mujeeb Ur Rahman and Ashwin himself for the middle order. In that middle order were two batsmen with poor strike rates against spin: Daniel Christian (102.33) and Rahul Tewatia (119.00). Between them, they faced 17 balls of spin for just nine runs, which took the momentum out of Daredevils' innings.
What is going on with Daredevils?
It looks like it will be another disappointing season for Daredevils, who haven't finished higher than sixth in the IPL since the 2012 season. They are rock bottom and need to win most of their remaining eight games to stand a chance of qualifying for the playoffs.
So what has been going wrong? It's difficult to pinpoint Delhi's weaknesses as both their batting and bowling have struggled. Their batting is in the bottom three in the Powerplay and middle overs, while their bowlers have been the most expensive among all teams in the Powerplay.
The losses have pressured them into changes, and they have used 19 players already this season, three more than any other team. They've tried seven different batsmen in the top three, three Indian seamers and three Indian spinners. For the game against Kings XI, they made five changes. Liam Plunkett and Avesh Khan came in and took five wickets between them, but Plunkett's inclusion meant Jason Roy had to be left out, and his replacement, Prithvi Shaw, could not kick on after a brisk start.
Another problem for Delhi has been that their two most expensive overseas recruits, Glenn Maxwell and Chris Morris, have not fired. Maxwell has just one score of note, which came in a losing cause, and Morris is yet to have a match-winning performance with either bat or ball.
Should Gambhir move down the order?
According to ESPNcricinfo's Smart Stats - ESPNcricinfo's new set of metrics to make sense of numbers in the shortest format - Gautam Gambhir has cost his team 40.61 runs this season due to his slow strike rate. He is striking at just 96.59, thanks mainly to his struggles against pace bowling. What hurts Daredevils is that batsmen such as Shreyas Iyer, Rishabh Pant and Glenn Maxwell, all of whom strike at over 135, are given less balls to get going because they come in after a slow start. Gambhir has always played the anchor role - his 4217 IPL runs have come at a strike rate of 123.88 - but with teams scoring more in the Powerplay than in any previous edition, that role may no longer be a valuable one.
Is it time to dump Yuvraj?
Yuvraj Singh has two unwanted records this IPL. Among batsmen who have faced 40 balls or more, he has the highest dot-ball percentage (58.92%) and the worst strike rate (89.28). According to Smart Stats, he has cost Kings XI 22.87 runs, and his scratchy 14 off 17 balls against Daredevils contributed to a below-par total.
Yuvraj has really struggled to middle the ball; out of the 56 balls he's faced, he has controlled less than 60%. He's also chosen to play defensive shots 23.21% of the time, surprising for the T20 format.
The struggle has not been surprising. Since January 2016, Yuvraj's strike rate in T20s is 117.73, well below par. Kings XI have not yet used Manoj Tiwary, whose strike rate in the same period is 134.88, and may consider bringing him in for Yuvraj for their next game.