Sunrisers Hyderabad (SRH) will take on the Lucknow Super Giants (LSG) in their second game of the 2023 Indian Premier League (IPL) campaign at the Bharat Ratna Shri Atal Bihari Vajpayee Ekana Cricket Stadium on April 7. SRH will look to put their nightmare start to the 2023 season behind them and script a turnaround against LSG under new skipper Aiden Markram with an improved all-round showing. (LSG vs SRH Live Score)
The availability of Markram, Klaasen and Jansen after they concluded national duty will be a welcome boost to the side as they all missed the season opener against Rajasthan Royals.
SRH finished the 2022 season in eighth position with just six wins from 14 matches. That forced the franchise to make big changes ahead of the 16th edition of the star-studded league.
The franchise entered the IPL 2023 player auction with the biggest purse of ₹42.25 crore and spent it wisely to recruit quality additions. They spent ₹13.25 crore to sign English sensation Harry Brook and ₹8.25 crore for the experienced Indian top-order batter Mayank Agarwal.
Sunrisers Hyderabad have a much more balanced squad in 2023 with quality backup options.
SRH boasts of explosive overseas batters with the likes of Markram, Brook, Kiwi wicketkeeper-batter Glenn Phillips and South African wicketkeeper-batter Heinrich Klaasen all capable of taking the game away from the opposition on any given day. They will also be hoping that their domestic batting talent in the form of Rahul Tripathi, Abhishek Sharma, and Agarwal work in tandem with the overseas talent to form a formidable batting line-up.
{{/usCountry}}SRH boasts of explosive overseas batters with the likes of Markram, Brook, Kiwi wicketkeeper-batter Glenn Phillips and South African wicketkeeper-batter Heinrich Klaasen all capable of taking the game away from the opposition on any given day. They will also be hoping that their domestic batting talent in the form of Rahul Tripathi, Abhishek Sharma, and Agarwal work in tandem with the overseas talent to form a formidable batting line-up.
{{/usCountry}}The SRH coaching staff will hope for a much-improved showing from the team as almost all the batters except Impact player Abdul Samad failed to make any notable contribution in the season opener.
They will hope that Markram, apart from his tactical acumen will also provide solidity to the middle-order.
SRH have three quality Indian bowlers in Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Umran Malik, and T Natarajan. All three pacers were impressive last season with a combined 52 wickets between them.
Umran topped the chart with 22 wickets while Natarajan bagged 18 from just 11 innings. But both struggled to control their economy rate which was above 9. That's where Bhuvneshwar came in with 12 wickets at an economy of just over 7. South African all-rounder Marco Jansen completes their pace bowling attack. SRH also have Adil Rashid and Washington Sundar in the spin department.
SRH will hope for a much better outing from their bowlers after they conceded more than 200 runs in the season opener, with only Natarajan and Farooqi making any sort of mentionable contributions with figures of 23/2 off 3 overs and 41/2 off 4 overs respectively.
Bhuvneshwar will also now be able to focus solely on his bowling after the added pressure of leading the side in the first game.
SRH predicted XI vs LSG
Openers: Mayank Agarwal, Abhishek Sharma.
Middle Order: Aiden Markram (c), Harry Brook, Rahul Tripathi, Glenn Phillips (wk).
All-Rounders: Washington Sundar, Marco Jansen.
Bowlers: Umran Malik, T Natarajan, Bhuvneshwar Kumar.
Impact Player: Abdul Samad was brought on as the Impact player in the season opener, and might be used again in the same role.