The defending champions find themselves in a precarious position at the moment, positioned in the middle of the points table after a crushing defeat to the Kolkata Knight Riders at the Eden Gardens. After two consecutive away defeats to Mumbai and Kolkata, David Warner’s aggressive unit finally returns home to take on the Kings XI Punjab.
A worrying sign came to the fore for the Sunrisers on Saturday, as with David Warner struggling to get going, the team seemed clearly stuck and that further propelled the required run rate. That just highlights the over dependence of the entire Sunrisers’ batting lineup on Warner, as with Shikhar Dhawan too looking a shade uncertain, batting is a key issue here for the men from Hyderabad.
PREVIOUS ENCOUNTER:
The last time these teams met, a cracker of a contest was witnessed at the PCA Stadium in Mohali. The hosts batted first and amassed a decent 179 on board with South African Hashim Amla playing an elegant knock of 96.
In pursuit of the target, Sunrisers got off to a solid start as skipper David Warner responded with a half century. Once Warner was dismissed hit wicket, there was a bit of panic, but then came the returning Yuvraj Singh. Singh, as he has done so many times in his career, rescued the Sunrisers and played a blinder to get his team home with just a couple of deliveries to spare. Yuvraj’s 42 off 24 included 3 sixes and as many fours.
Recent form this season:
SRH: L, L, W, W
KXIP: L, W, W
Talking Points:
The ploy to drop Mustafizur Rehman backfired as his quota of overs completed by Moises Henriques and Bipul Sharma cost the team 46 runs. Henriques struggled with the bat as well and with the other all-rounder Ben Cutting doing well, one can expect Henriques to make way for the Bangladesh pacer in the next game.
Yuvraj Singh has been in decent form off late, but has been batting quite low. Thus, the southpaw hasn’t been facing the number of deliveries he ideally should. A good move would be to promote Yuvraj at 3, where he can be dangerous and take the game away from the opposition.
SRH Predicted XI:
- D. Warner (c) 2. S. Dhawan 3. Y. Singh 4. D. Hooda 5. B. Cutting 6. N. Ojha 7. B. Sharma 8. R. Khan 9. B. Kumar 10. A. Nehra 11. M. Rehman