Sunrisers Hyderabad (SRH) lock horns with Rajasthan Royals in the second match of the IPL 2025 at the Rajiv Gandhi International Stadium in Hyderabad on Sunday, March 23. Sunrisers Hyderabad(SRH) and Rajasthan Royals battle it out in a high-stakes clash in Hyderabad on Sunday, March 23. Both teams played the playoffs of last season and met each other in Qualifier 2 in 2024 with SRH continuing their march to the final and RR left ruing another season that could have seen them end their title drought.
Sunrisers Hyderabad hit 178 sixes in 2024, the most by any side in an IPL season. Rajasthan Royals’ bowlers will have their work cut out in what is a rematch of last season’s second qualifier.
SRH vs RR : Previous Performances
Hyderabad finished runners-up last season under Pat Cummins’ captaincy. Their aggressive brand of cricket enthralled the fans throughout the season. The Orange Army won eight out of their 14 matches and lost five in the league phase to finish second on the points table. They defeated Rajasthan by 36 runs in Chennai in Qualifier 2 to make it to the finals, where they lost to Kolkata Knight Riders.
Both teams made interesting moves before the auction as SRH retained a solid core while RR let go of long-time servant Jos Buttler with Sanju Samson finding a career renaissance as an opener for the Indian team. Samson, however, will be playing as a batter in the first three matches with Riyan Parag being elected as the captain. The Assam star has made heads turn in the last few seasons with the bat and last one was his best in his IPL career.
Cummins will lead the Sunrisers once again. Travis Head and Abhishek Sharma formed one of the most lethal opening pairs last season. They will look to get their team off to a rollicking start on Sunday. Mohammed Shami has been roped in by the franchise and the stalwart will look to make an instant impact.
SRH also added a young star to their fiery lineup in the form of Ishan Kishan, who was simply sensational during the intra-squad matches for his new team in the IPL. Expect Kishan to be at No.3 for his side in the lineup just after the explosive duo of Travis Head and Abhishek Sharma. Nitish Kumar Reddy will come in at No.4, followed by Heinrich Klaasen. Abhinav Manohar or Sachin Baby could act as impact sub options with Adam Zampa, captain Pat Cummins, Mohammed Shami, Harshal Patel and Jaydev Unadkat forming the bowling attack.
Rajasthan made an interesting decision to appoint Riyan Parag as their captain for the first three games this season. In the last couple of seasons, the Royals have got off to blistering starts in the tournament but lost steam towards the end. In IPL 2024, they won eight out of their first nine matches and were poised to finish in the top-two. However, four defeats in their last five games meant that they had to take the longer route to the final. They defeated Royal Challengers Bengaluru in the Eliminator but could not get past Hyderabad in Qualifier 2.
For RR, with Samson playing just as a batter, he will be the one who will either get subbed out or come in as the impact sub depending on the toss. He and Yashasvi Jaiswal will open, followed by Nitish Rana, captain Riyan and Dhruv Jurel, who will be the wicketkeeper in the first 3 games.
Shimron Hetmyer and Shubham Dubey will have the role of finishing the innings with Wanindu Hasaranga and Maheesh Theekshana forming the spin attack. Jofra Archer has started training but it is unsure if he will be playing the first match. If he doesn’t play the match, expect Fazal Farooqi to go up against his former side. Sandeep Sharma will be part of the playing 12 after his exploits last season and they will have Tushar Deshpande rounding off the attack.
The Royals will miss Jos Buttler’s services in IPL 2025 as the former England skipper has moved to Gujarat Titans. Meanwhile, Nitish Rana has signed with the franchise and will add a lot of value in the middle-order. Rajasthan might go in with three overseas bowlers in Jofra Archer, Wanindu Hasaranga, and Maheesh Theekshana. Yashasvi Jaiswal’s form will be key as he can take the opposition bowlers to the cleaners when he is on song.
SRH vs RR : Head to Head
SRH have the upper hand overall, winning 11 of the 20 matches between the two sides. RR have only won once at Hyderabad’s home in five attempts. That tally came very close to doubling last season, only for them to fall short by one run in a last-ball thriller.
| Matches Played | 20 |
| Won by Sunrisers Hyderabad | 11 |
| Won by Rajasthan Royals | 09 |
| Tied | 00 |
| No Result | 00 |
| First-ever Fixture | April 24, 2013 |
| Most-recent Fixture | May 24, 2024 |
SRH vs RR : Pitch Report
The pitch at the Rajiv Gandhi International Stadium is known for being batting-friendly, though bowlers might find some extra bounce early on. Historically, chasing teams have had the upper hand here, as the surface remains consistent throughout the game. Meanwhile, there are chances that rain could play spoilsport. The weather forecast predicts thunderstorms, lightning, and gusty winds on match day, which might delay the start. However, a complete washout seems unlikely.
The average run rate in Hyderabad last year was 10.54, the second-highest among the 13 grounds. SRH’s ultra-aggressive attitude with the bat – they even chased down 166 against LSG within ten overs – took the pitch out of the equation. Hyderabad is expected to be hot on Sunday afternoon, with hardly any chance of rain. So expect big scores again, and the ball flying to all parts of the ground.
Runs and thunderstorms. The Indian Meteorological Department-Hyderabad have issued a yellow alert for thunderstorms with lightning and gusty winds (30-40 kmph) in several parts of Telangana including Hyderabad from Saturday to Monday. That said, there’s no prediction for rain on match day.
SRH vs RR : Big Picture : Sanju Samson to play only as batter vs Sunrisers Hyderabad
300. Three Hundred. Those are the words. The expectation. The casual anticipation of batting reach this year. Bowlers’ open complaints about the impact player’s detrimental effect on their tribe didn’t yield the results it intended. The rule has instead got another season’s renewal and the teams, including the ones set to walk out in Hyderabad on Sunday afternoon, have accepted the reality of needing to embrace the course that the tournament has got itself on.
On the eve of the game at a venue whose conditions have notoriously formed a tag-team partnership with batters, SRH head coach Daniel Vettori revealed that captain Pat Cummins has left the onus of performance on them. The finalists got back almost as much of the brutality their batters served the opposition with, and still made it all the way before falling at the final hurdle. Like last season, Cummins expects his batters to do all the heavy-lifting while bowlers navigate life through the treacherous path laid out for them.
In a video uploaded by Sunrisers Hyderabad (SRH) on Friday, Heinrich Klaasen, batting in the nets, belts every ball he faces out of sight. Travis Head, his equally big-hitting team-mate, keeps swinging his his head around to try and follow the ball into the distance. Leading into IPL 2025, it was a throwback to Klaasen, Head and Abhishek Sharma’s merciless six-hitting last season. The three combined to smash 112 sixes out of SRH’s 178 in 2024 – the most by any side in any IPL season.
Ahead of IPL 2025, SRH retained the explosive trio with no questions asked, alongside their captain Pat Cummins and emerging allrounder Nitish Kumar Reddy. SRH now begin their new season by facing the team they had knocked out in last year’s Qualifier 2.
Rajasthan Royals (RR), like their opposition on Sunday, have retained their core group of Sanju Samson, Yashasvi Jaiswal and Riyan Parag (alongside Shimron Hetmyer, Dhruv Jurel and Sandeep Sharma). Samson has been RR’s go-to batter – he has 300-plus runs for them in seven successive seasons – but he will begin this season as an Impact Player, giving up keeping and captaining duties as he recovers from an injured finger. Parag will be lead RR in their first three games, a clear sign that at only 23 he’s already part of their leadership group.
Sanju Samson narrowed the imbalance between bat and ball down to how different the idea of ‘maximising the PowerPlay’ looks like at the moment. The team he faces on Saturday afternoon smashed two 100-plus scores in this phase last year to top the charts.
With the core of the devastating top-order retained and with Ishan Kishan added to it, SRH find themselves to be the prime candidates for any total, however, unprecedented. RR’s task of not being in this line of fire is compounded by the fact that they’ve had their rather competent bowling attack from 2024 stripped down and rebuilt, with a dash of inexperience added in.
Hetmyer is RR’s only overseas batting option, and that leaves them with a potentially all-Indian top five of Jaiswal, Samson, Parag, Nitish Rana and Jurel. With Hetmyer to follow, the batting still looks formidable, but RR are short on Indian bowling options. They will hope Jofra Archer (who is back with RR after five years), new imports Wanindu Hasaranga and Maheesh Theekshana and Sandeep can challenge SRH’s ultra-aggressive approach.
Last year, both Hasaranga and Fazalhaq Farooqi were with SRH. But while Hasaranga pulled out due to injury, Farooqi didn’t get a game. Now they are both with RR, and have been in great form since the last IPL. While Hasaranga has 64 wickets at an average of 16.15 in all T20s since then, Farooqi has 62 at 15.17. Farooqi’s run included being the joint-highest wicket-taker at the T20 World Cup 2024. So, this time, SRH could get to see what they missed last season.
Adam Zampa, meanwhile, withdrew late from the IPL last year after being retained by RR. This time, he’s at SRH, and heads into the IPL on the back of 62 wickets in 39 T20s since the last IPL. SRH have some consolation after all. Sunday afternoon’s clash might lack the history, aura and anticipation of what follows at prime time in Chennai between two serial winners (CSK and MI), but the two teams – with one shimmering trophy adorning their respective cabinets – have what it takes to combat, entertain and script an engrossing plotline of their own.
SRH vs RR : In the spotlight: Nitish Reddy and Yashasvi Jaiswal
One of IPL 2024’s big finds was Nitish Kumar Reddy. His captain Cummins called him “awesome”, and Reddy, a rare pace-bowling allrounder in India, so impressed the national team’s management that he was handed a T20I later in the year and then flew to Australia to face Cummins’ side in Test cricket. A Test century in Melbourne brought tears to his father’s eyes, and he will be hoping to keep making him proud this IPL.
Yashasvi Jaiswal took the IPL by storm in 2023, when he cracked its fastest fifty – off 13 balls. He tallied 625 runs at a strike rate of 163.61, including a century. The next year, although he scored 435 runs, that number still seemed to have fallen short of expectations. Jaiswal was part of India’s T20 World Cup-winning squad just after that, but didn’t get a game. He has remained on the fringes of India’s T20I side, and with immense competition from Abhishek and Samson, he will need an impactful IPL to change that.
SRH vs RR : Vital Stats that matters
- The SRH vs RR rivalry is nowhere near as popular as CSK vs RCB, or CSK vs MI. But the cricket, of late at least, has been tight and exciting; SRH lead the faceoff against RR 11-9, with two of the last three games between them being high-scoring, last-ball thrillers.
- Thirty-two batters faced at least 200 balls last season, of which Abhishek (204.21) and Head (191.55) led charts for strike rates. Klaasen was seventh with 171.07.
- Bhuvneshwar Kumar was a major part of SRH’s line-up from 2014 to 2024. Sunday will be the first time since October 2021 that SRH will be playing a match without him in the side.
- Sanju Samson averages 52.70 and strikes at 162.65 in T20s at the Hyderabad venue. He has 527 runs in 12 innings there, including two fifties and as many centuries
- In his last two seasons (2022 and 2023), Mohammed Shami picked 28 PowerPlay wickets in 33 matches, and conceded runs at just 7.08. In the season when the impact player rule was first introduced (IPL 2023), he conceded runs at 7.50 in the first six overs.
SRH vs RR : Team News : SRH and RR
Sunrisers Hyderabad
Injury/Unavailability: The 2024 finalists have a clean bill of health, with Pat Cummins and Nitish Reddy coming through to be ready from the beginning.
Tactics & Match-ups: SRH have the spin-smashing arsenal all over their top-order to make it a tough re-initiation into the IPL for Wanindu Hasaranga. The Sri Lankan spinner, who was coincidentally picked by SRH last season but couldn’t feature due to an injury, comes up against the team with the highest-ever strike rate against spin in a single IPL edition – 161.43 in 2024.
While Abhishek Sharma has nearly struck at 200 against spin since IPL 2023, his opening partner Travis Head has gone at 164.51, while being even more menacing against pace. SRH then have two middle-order batters in Nitish Reddy and Heinrich Klaasen, who both strike at more than 180 against turn in this period. Hasaranga, with the joint-most T20 wickets since 2024, has the experience and ability to push back and reclaim some balance in an otherwise one-sided match-
Joining the SRH batting party this time is Abhinav Manohar. He was the second-highest run-getter in last year’s Maharaja T20 Trophy, the Karnataka-based T20 league, where he slammed 52 sixes, 22 higher than the next batter on the list. As for SRH’s fourth overseas player, they have options in Zampa, Kamindu Mendis, Wiaan Mulder and Eshan Malinga. They could opt for Mendis if they choose to lengthen their batting line-up, or Zampa if they want to include a second frontline spinner alongside Rahul Chahar.
SRH Predicted XI: Abhishek Sharma, Travis Head, Ishan Kishan, Nitish Kumar Reddy, Heinrich Klaasen, Abhinav Manohar, Pat Cummins (C), Adam Zampa, Mohammed Shami, Harshal Patel, Jaydev Unadkat
Impact sub: Sachin Baby
Rajasthan Royals
Injury/Unavailability: Samson has confirmed that he hasn’t fully recovered from his finger injury, and will not lead the team in the first three fixtures. Riyan Parag will take over, with Samson featuring as a pure batter. Given the injury is to his finger, RR could swap him in and out as an impact player.
Tactics & Match-ups: With the option of playing five Indian batters in the top-six, RR have flexibility with regards to their overseas bowling combinations. Hyderabad was a graveyard for spinners last season, which should prompt them to go with only one of their two Sri Lankan options in Hasaranga. SRH will field a left-heavy top-order but Hasaranga has a googly that he uses generously to mitigate the drawbacks of the match-up.
RR had the best PowerPlay bowling unit in 2024 in terms of average (27.48) and economy rate (8.24), putting Afghanistan’s left-arm quick Fazalhaq Farooqi front and centre of carrying the torch ahead in that phase even as the team has a new-look bowling attack. Since 2024, Farooqi has 45 PowerPlay wickets in the format – the best tally for that phase.
In Samson’s absence from the field, Jurel will likely that over the wicketkeeping gloves. Depending on the pitch and the conditions, RR might have to choose between Theekshana and Farooqi. They have only Hasaranga in the allrounder bracket in a squad otherwise full of specialist batters and bowlers.
RR Predicted XI:
Sanju Samson, Yashasvi Jaiswal, Nitish Rana, Riyan Parag (c), Dhruv Jurel (wk.), Shimron Hetmyer, Shubham Dubey, Wanindu Hasaranga, Maheesh Theekshana, Jofra Archer/Fazal Farooqi, Tushar Deshpande.
Impact sub: Sandeep Sharma
SRH vs RR Fantasy Playing XI : Sanju Samson, Heinrich Klaasen, Travis Head, Yashasvi Jaiswal, Nitish Rana, Abhishek Sharma, Riyan Parag, Nitish Reddy, Pat Cummins, Adam Zampa, Sandeep Sharma
SRH vs RR Probable Best Performers
Probable Best Batter: Travis Head
Travis Head set IPL 2024 on fire with some destructive innings at the top of the order. He finished with 567 runs from 15 innings at an average of 40.50 and a strike rate of 191.55. The southpaw has continued that form since then and will hold the key for the Sunrisers, especially in the powerplay overs. With his consistent performances, he could be a strong contender for the IPL 2025 Orange Cap.
Probable Best Bowler: Mohammed Shami
Mohammed Shami has found a new home after shifting base from Gujarat. He missed IPL 2024 due to an injury but won the Purple Cap in the season before. The 34-year-old had a decent campaign in the 2025 Champions Trophy as he took nine wickets from five matches in India’s triumphant run. With his wicket-taking ability, he could be in the race for the IPL 2025 Purple Cap Shami will look to give his team some early wickets with the new ball.
SRH vs RR Match Prediction
When batting first at Rajiv Gandhi International Stadium, teams posting a total in the 179-199 range have historically performed well. If SRH can post a score in this range batting first, their win probability increases substantially. Conversely, if RR can take 3 or more wickets in the powerplay, data shows they could potentially neutralize SRH’s advantage with a 20% boost to their win probability.
Considering the venue statistics and team compositions, Sunrisers Hyderabad are the favourites to win the game. Rajasthan Royals will face some issues in building their playing combination and that might show up in their performance.
Scenario 1
- Sunrisers Hyderabad win the toss and bowl
- PP Score – 55-65
- RR – 200-210
- Sunrisers Hyderabad win the match
Scenario 2
- Rajasthan Royals win the toss and bowl
- PP score – 60-70
- SRH- 210-220
- Rajasthan Royals win the match