Sunrisers Hyderabad are a strange team. Statistically, they have one of the worst batting line-ups in this Indian Premier League 2018. And yet they keep winning matches – because they have the best bowling attack by far in the IPL.
Consider the last match for example. Sunrisers were bowled out for 118 by the defending champions of the IPL, Mumbai Indians. Under normal circumstances, you would expect Mumbai Indians and their star-studded batting line-up comprising of Rohit Sharma, the Pandya brothers and Kieron Pollard to get past such a low score even on their worst day.
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But no, the Sunrisers Hyderabad bowling attack led by young Rashid Khan destroyed the much vaunted Mumbai Indians batting, dismissing them for just 87!
This is no ordinary team by any means. If only they could get their batting sorted out, their bowlers wouldn’t have to work so hard every match.
Consider Manish Pandey, the star Indian player in the Sunrisers squad. He has historically been a poor performer in the IPL and yet keeps getting picked by top teams. He has made only 88 runs in five innings at a poor strike-rate of 118.
Pandey is an example of how quite often utterly mediocre players make it big in the IPL. Another example like him is Glenn Maxwell. These players do well once in a blue moon and do absolutely nothing in the rest of the season.
It is only captain Kane Williamson who has been holding the fort for the Sunrisers. Sunrisers have been reduced to Williamson + the bowlers, with the rest of the team doing precious little.
We have focused this entire match preview on Sunrisers and not on their opponents for this game Kings XI Punjab because we have said enough about Kings XI.
They are the best team in the IPL so far, led brilliantly by the best captain of the IPL, R. Ashwin and with Chris Gayle and KL Rahul opening the batting for them, they are capable of destroying any team any day.
Prediction: Will depend on whether Chris Gayle recovered from a slight injury and plays this game. If Gayle plays and bats for 15 overs, Kings XI will win.
The Teams
Sunrisers Hyderabad: 1 Shikhar Dhawan, 2 Kane Williamson (capt), 3 Wriddhiman Saha (wk), 4 Manish Pandey, 5 Yusuf Pathan, 6 Deepak Hooda, 7 Mohammad Nabi, 8 Rashid Khan, 9 Bhuvneshwar Kumar/Sandeep Sharma, 10 Siddarth Kaul, 11 Basil Thampi
Kings XI Punjab: 1 Chris Gayle/Aaron Finch, 2 KL Rahul (wk), 3 Mayank Agarwal, 4 David Miller/Marcus Stoinis, 5 Karun Nair, 6 Yuvraj Singh/Manoj Tiwary, 7 R Ashwin (capt), 8 Andrew Tye, 9 Barinder Sran, 10 Ankit Rajpoot, 11 Mujeeb ur Rahman
Watch Sunrisers Hyderabad play Kings XI Punjab tonight at 8 pm live on Star Sports!
