Most of the pundits feel this Sunrisers’ squad is well balanced among all the teams in this Indian Premier League season. Under the leadership of David Warner, Sunrisers is on their way to defend the title.
They started their campaign pretty well, defeating Royal Challengers Bangalore and Gujarat Lions easily. In the first game, Yuvraj Singh showed his class with his hitting and in the next game against Gujarat, David Warner and Rashid Khan combined to decimate Gujaratis in Hyderabad.
Such is the beauty of Indian Premier League, an associate team player Rashid Khan came in and surprised everyone with his googlies and is odds on to get Purple Cap in his head.
Now he has a huge role to play in Eden Gardens condition, traditionally it is going to be slow spin friendly track. Against Kolkata Knight Riders, Hyderabad is going to face a different challenge from their last games and loss against Mumbai is kind of a wake-up call for their lower order middle and lower order batting.
Previous Encounters-
In the previous season of Indian Premier League, Kolkata Knight Riders dominated Sunrisers Hyderabad in both the matches of league round. In the first match, KKR bowlers and Gautam Gambhir 90-run innings decimated Sunrisers Hyderabad. In the same game, we saw one of the best yorkers from Mustafiizur Rahman to Andre Russell. In the second meeting, Kolkata Knight Riders proved a better side again, Kolkata won the game by 22 runs. Yusuf Pathan scored a 50 of 34 balls and helped KKR reach past 150 after a shaky start.
Recent Form-
Sunrisers Hyderabad- W W L
Kolkata Knight Riders- W L
Talking Points-
Both teams are equipped with some good batsman at the top as well as in middle order, though they are yet to get exposed, cause against Gujarat Lions both teams didn’t loose enough wickets to so they (Middle order batsman) can get a chance to free their arms. If Warner and Dhawan played their natural attacking game then we can sense a run-fest in Eden Gardens.
Rashid Khan recently has become the talk of the Indian Premier League, he had Purple Cap in his head for a game and then Bhuvneshwar Kumar overtook him against Mumbai by picking up 3 wickets.
Now, he is leading with one wicket ahead of Imran Tahir and Rashid Khan. Though Rashid Khan has been really impressive against most of the batsmen who are good playing spin. Batsmen are struggling to pick up his deliveries.
Sunrisers Hyderabad Team-
David Warner(C), Shikhar Dhawan, Deepak Hooda, Yuvraj Singh, Naman Ojha(WK), Ben Cutting, Bipul Sharma, Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Rashid Khan, Aashish Nehra, Mustafizur Rahman