For Delhi Daredevils, every match is a must win. The team has looked like a completely new outfit under Shreyas Iyer, their 23-year old captain.
It is now safe to say that Gautam Gambhir dragged Delhi down and they would have been much better placed than they are now had they dropped Gambhir at the start of the tournament and gone with Shreyas Iyer instead.
Gambhir’s replacement at the opening slot has been young Prithvi Shaw, who was the most impressive young batsman of the India Under-19 team and he has continued from where he had left off.
Rishabh Pant, the other young batsman, has been brilliant as well. He is the current holder of the orange cap for the most runs in the competition.
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The only real issue with Delhi is that while the youngsters are holding fort, the senior overseas pros including Glenn Maxwell, Jason Roy and Colin Munro have done precious little. They have certainly not justified their position in the batting line-up.
As for Sunrisers Hyderabad, they are on a solid footing right now. Captain Kane Williamson said, “For many, batting might mean big totals of 180s or 200s. However, for me it is just about 10 to 15 runs more, which we can get with some smart adjustments,” he said.
“The team’s progress so far has been very impressive, even as there is always scope for improvement. One of the major tasks before the season began was to adapt to the different conditions, compared to the previous editions when 180-200 totals were very consistent. That way, full credit to the team for the way it responded to each crisis so far. However, now on these surfaces, even 140-plus is defendable,”
Bhuvneshwar Kumar, who missed the last couple of games is expected to come back to add heft to the already strong Sunrisers bowling attack.
Prediction: Easy win for Sunrisers.
The Teams
Sunrisers Hyderabad: 1 Shikhar Dhawan, 2 Alex Hales, 3 Kane Williamson (capt), 4 Manish Pandey, 5 Shakib Al Hasan, 6 Yusuf Pathan, 7 Wriddhiman Saha (wk), 8 Rashid Khan, 9 Bhuvneshwar Kumar, 10 Sandeep Sharma, 11 Siddarth Kaul
Delhi Daredevils: 1 Prithvi Shaw, 2 Colin Munro/Jason Roy, 3 Shreyas Iyer (capt), 4 Rishabh Pant (wk), 5 Glenn Maxwell, 6 Vijay Shankar, 7 Liam Plunkett, 8 Amit Mishra, 9 Avesh Khan, 10 Trent Boult, 11 Shahbaz Nadeem
Watch Sunrisers Hyderabad take on Delhi Daredevils tonight at 8 pm live on Star Sports!
