The owners of Sunrisers Hyderabad aren’t doing too well as the political party they belong to, suffered a massive trouncing in the recently held elections in the state of Tamil Nadu.
Indeed, none of the IPL owners really seem to be doing well. Vijay Mallya, the owner of the Bangalore Royal Challengers faces a term in jail for defaulting on a $1.2 billion loan. But we digress and our focus here should be on the match between Delhi Daredevils and Sunrisers Hyderabad.
Okay! Here we go then! It’s that time of the IPL when every team is in a battle to the get to the playoffs. Delhi Daredevils have had a really rough time lately, but Sunrisers Hyderabad are flying. They are very close to qualifying and are peaking at the right time.
A win tonight or on Sunday against the Kolkata Knight Riders would see them definitely finish in the top two. What’s helping the Sunrisers is that they have a positive net run rate and most of their top players are in great form. The team is like a well oiled machinery.
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Sure, Ashish Nehra’s injury wouldn’t have helped. Nehra is a critical part of the Sunrisers bowling attack, and his absence for the rest of the season isn’t good news by any means. They will however, hope to get over that and focus on getting the right replacement for Nehra.
This means Barinder Sran is likely to come back into the Sunrisers line-up. They have other decent options such as right-arm seamer Abhimanyu Mithun, who hasn’t played a single game in this year’s IPL and left-arm spinner Bipul Sharma.
Kane Williamson is expected to come back in place of Ben Cutting, who did hit a match winning 18 that won them the last game, but whose bowling has been ineffective.
As for Delhi Daredevils, this season is turning out to be a forgettable one. They have already lost four of their last five games and nobody knows where their next win is going to come from.
They really need to change the way they have approached their games so far and play with more confidence if they are going to have a chance of making it to the playoffs in this IPL. Among the contenders for the top four positions, Delhi Daredevils look least likely to make it.
The Daredevils play their games in Raipur, not in Delhi and have struggled in the extreme heat. They have chopped and changed the side a lot and only Amit Mishra, Karun Nair and Sanju Samson have played all their matches so far this season.
Sunrisers have a very steady outfit and as many as seven of their players have played every match – David Warner, Shikhar Dhawan, Moises Henriques, Deepak Hooda, Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Mustafizur Rahman and Naman Ojha.
Daredevils depend heavily on Quinton de Kock, their top batsman. But he hasn’t done much lately either. His dip in form can be attribute to the recent run of poor results suffered by the Delhi side.
The Teams
Sunrisers Hyderabad: 1 David Warner (capt), 2 Shikhar Dhawan, 3 Deepak Hooda, 4 Yuvraj Singh, 5 Ben Cutting/Kane Williamson, 6 Naman Ojha(wk), 7 Moises Henriques, 8 Bhuvneshwar Kumar 9 Karn Sharma 10 Mustafizur Rahman, 11 Barinder Sran
Delhi Daredevils : 1 Quinton de Kock(wk), 2 Shreyas Iyer/Mayank Agarwal, 3 Karun Nair, 4 Sanju Samson, 5 Rishabh Pant, 6 JP Duminy/Carlos Brathwaite/ Sam Billings, 7 Chris Morris, 8 Amit Mishra, 9 Zaheer Khan(capt), 10 Nathan Coulter-Nile/Imran Tahir, 11 Mohammed Shami/Jayant Yadav/Pawan Negi/Shahbaz Nadeem
Match Conditions
It is expected to be very hot in Raipur. The pitch here offers no help whatsoever to bowlers, so expect a run fest.
Watch Delhi Daredevils play Sunrisers Hyderabad tonight at 8:00 pm on Sony Six!
