On Thursday Sunrisers Hyderabad (SRH) will take over Rajasthan Royals (RR) in Rajiv Gandhi International Stadium, Hyderabad. Power-packed Sunrisers Hyderabad have failed in the last two matches as they have lost against Bengaluru and Chennai, they will try to bounce back and would like to grab those 2 points, currently, they are in the 5th position with 10 points. On the other hand table topper Rajasthan Royals are just one win away to add a ‘Q’ beside them.
Journey- Sunrisers Hyderabad and Rajasthan Royals
Sunrisers Hyderabad was considered as destruction mode for bowlers who have broken the highest score of IPL twice seems like they have dominated the Ipl. Skipper Pat Cummins who is known for their famous statements before the season begins, states that they will play aggressive cricket and will keep the approach the same. But now the last two matches they have as a batting unit while chasing. Fireguns Travis Head and Abhishek Sharma have failed to score runs and others also failed to contribute with the bat either. Kiwi batter Glean Phillips should be added to the XI so that finishing the matches would be easy.
Rajasthan Royals is chilling on the top of the table till now they have lost just one match many positives like the Openers are giving a steady start yet scoring runs too. Since Yashasvi Jaiswal has been added to the squad of the T20 World Cup will have now the additional responsibility to score big runs and to keep the form like this only. Skipper Sanju Samson who is also the part of World Cup squad needs to chin up and score runs. Youngster Dhruv Jurel scored a half-century in the last match against Lucknow Super Giants and will keep his momentum and possibly score another half-century or maybe a century. Bowlers will keep the momentum and need to keep an eye on Boult and Sandeep Sharma.
Head-to-Head
Both of them have faced each other 18 times and have won equal 9 times each. So the match will be very interesting to watch as it is a match between the strong batting side and vs strong bowling side.
Matchups
Bhuvneshwar, despite his lean patch in this IPL, has a good record against Jos Buttler, having dismissed him six times in 91 deliveries in T20 cricket. Bhuvneshwar has also accounted for Samson three times in the IPL and SRH will be banking on the experienced pacer against the RR top order. T Natarajan is a good option against Riyan Parag as the left-arm seamer has dismissed the batter twice in 15 deliveries.
Pitch Report
The pitch seems to be hard and rough means batsmen have a full chance to hit boundaries and the bowl may swing a little. Spinners do have a chance to pick wickets as the pitch has cracks which helps them to turn the bowl and grab wickets. First innings average score is 217 so there might be a chance that we can again witness 250+ scores from Hyderabad if they win the toss. Ideally when Royal Challengers Bengaluru was restricted to 171 spinners had a huge role in that match so Chahal and Ashwin’s role should be known to Sanju and accordingly use their overs. Chase is easy over this pitch as Dew plays a huge role in Hyderabad, yet needs to play with the situation.