New Delhi. Rajasthan Royals and Sunrisers Hyderabad will battle it out for a place in the IPL final on Friday. This match of IPL Qualifier-2 will be played in Chennai. The pitch here has been helpful for the spinners. In such a situation, the performance of Yuzvendra Chahal and Ravichandran Ashwin can be seen in this match. Trevid Head and Abhishek Sharma, who have given Sunrisers Hyderabad a great start, may face a tough challenge from this clever spin duo from Rajasthan.
The duo of Travis Head and Abhishek Sharma have given a new style to batting in the Powerplay. The pair has earned the nickname ‘Trevisheck’ from fans. Head has scored 533 runs at a strike rate of 199.62 in the current season. Abhishek has 470 runs at a strike rate of 207.04. Both have hit 72 sixes and 96 fours so far. Apart from this, Sunrisers have an excellent batsman in the form of Henrik Klaasen (413 runs at a strike rate of 180) who has hit 34 sixes.
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The pitch at MA Chidambaram Stadium in Chennai will be slightly different from Uppal (Hyderabad). Here the ball gets stuck and it is not easy to play big shots as they come. This is also the home pitch of off-spinner Ashwin. He is well aware of this and is in great form. Rajasthan Royals will be hoping that Ashwin, along with leg-spinner Yuzwend Chahal, sends Head, Abhishek and Klaassen to the pavilion as soon as possible.
SRH struggling with lack of spinners
As far as Sunrisers’ bowling is concerned, once again the onus will be on Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Pat Cummins and T Natarajan. Natarajan has been the team’s highest wicket-taker this season. They will want to take advantage of the situation while playing at their home ground. Sunrisers’ problem is also the lack of good spinners in the team. Mayank Markandey and Shahbaz Ahmed are not effective.
Talking about Rajasthan Royals, Yashaswi Jaiswal is seen returning to form. He will be looking to continue this form ahead of the T20 World Cup next month. Captain Sanju Samus will have to do better as he has not even touched the 20-run mark in the last three matches. Dhruv Jurrell will be under pressure in the middle order, who could not even reach double figures in his last two matches. Hyderabad will also depend on West Indies’ Shimron Hetmyer and Rovman Powell, who showed power hitting against Bengaluru. Ryan Parag who is in great form in the current season is one of the reliable batsmen of Royals.
Sunrisers Hyderabad: Pat Cummins (Captain), Abhishek Sharma, Travis Head, Henrik Klaassen, Aidan Markram, Abdul Samad, Nitish Reddy, Shahbaz Ahmed, Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Jaydev Undkat, T Natarajan, Mayank Markande, Umran Malik, Anmolpreet Singh, Glenn Phillips, Rahul Tripath , Washington Sundar, Upendra Yadav, J Subramaniam, Sanveer Singh, Vijayakanth Vyaskanth, Fazalhaq Farooqui, Marco Jensen, Akash Maharaj Singh and Mayank Aggarwal.
Rajasthan Royals: Sanju Samson (capt), Yashshwi Jaiswal, Tom Kohler-Cadmore, Ryan Parag, Dhruv Jurrell, Shimron Hetmyer, Donovan Ferreira, Rovman Powell, Ravichandran Ashwin, Trent Boult, Yuzvendra Chahal, Avesh Khan, Sandeep Sharma, Kuldeep Sen, Krunal Singh, Rani Rathwa, Nandre Berger, Navdeep Saini, Shubham Dubey, Abid Mushtaq and Tanush Kotian.
Tags: IPL 2024, Rajasthan Royals, Sunrisers Hyderabad
First published: May 23, 2024, 19:45 IST