Sunrisers Hyderabad (SRH) will take on bottom-of-the-table Delhi Capitals (DC) on Saturday at the Arun Jaitley stadium in Delhi. The Aiden Markram-led side will hope to get back to winning ways after three consecutive defeats in their last three games.
After losing their opening two games convincingly to the Rajasthan Royals (RR) and the Lucknow Super Giants (LSG), SRH bounced back in style by winning their next two games against PBKS and KKR. But have since lost to MI, CSK and DC. They lost the reverse fixture to DC in Hyderabad on April 24 as the batters buckled under the pressure from the DC bowlers and SRH fell short of the 145-run target by 7 runs in the end.
Sunrisers Hyderabad have won two and lost five of their seven games so far and are second from bottom on the table. Another loss to DC in the upcoming game will see them slip to the bottom of the table.
There have been flashes of brilliance from the SRH batters but none of them have made consistent contributions so far this season. Brook has scored 163 runs, Rahul Tripathi has scored 160 runs and Markram has scored 124 runs so far.
Mayank Agarwal has also scored 164 runs but at a paltry strike rate of 111. At the start of the innings scoring runs quickly is of paramount importance in order to take full advantage of the powerplay. Head coach Brian Lara bemoaned his batters’ intent after the loss to DC. Lara felt that the bowlers did brilliantly to restrict DC to a below-par score and the batters should have chased the target without any problems, but they weren’t proactive or enterprising enough to take advantage of the fielding restrictions in the first few overs and were always playing catch-up.
{{/usCountry}}Mayank Agarwal has also scored 164 runs but at a paltry strike rate of 111. At the start of the innings scoring runs quickly is of paramount importance in order to take full advantage of the powerplay. Head coach Brian Lara bemoaned his batters’ intent after the loss to DC. Lara felt that the bowlers did brilliantly to restrict DC to a below-par score and the batters should have chased the target without any problems, but they weren’t proactive or enterprising enough to take advantage of the fielding restrictions in the first few overs and were always playing catch-up.
{{/usCountry}}Washington Sundar has been ruled out of the season with a hamstring injury since the loss to DC, no replacement has been named yet. Sundar wasn’t having the best of seasons before his injury but was still an important member of the SRH team.
As for the bowlers, Mayank Markande has picked up eight wickets so far this season at an economy of less than seven. Marco Jansen and Bhuvneshwar Kumar have picked up 6, and Umran Malik and Natarajan have also chipped in with 5 scalps each. The bowlers did well in the last game against DC but the batters let the team down.
Openers: Mayank Agarwal, Harry Brook.
Middle Order: Aiden Markram (c), Heinrich Klaasen (wk), Rahul Tripathi.
All-rounders: Abhishek Sharma, Marco Jansen.
Bowlers: Umran Malik, T Natarajan, Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Mayank Markande.
Impact Player: Abdul Samad or Mayank Dagar could be utilised as the Impact player by SRH against DC