After a surprising loss at the hands of Kings XI Punjab, Shikhar Dhawan’s Sunrisers Hyderabad now face a must-win tie against the Kolkata Knight Riders, who too, are on a high following back-to-back victories.
After a surprising loss at the hands of Kings XI Punjab, Shikhar Dhawan’s Sunrisers Hyderabad now face a must-win tie against the Kolkata Knight Riders, who too, are on a high following back-to-back victories. The Sunrisers have earned eight points from 10 matches and suffered successive losses against Mumbai Indians and Kings XI Punjab at their own turf, which makes it important for the team to win on Sunday to book a place in semis.
Though Sunrisers set a mammoth target of 205 runs in the match against Punjab, the latter’s formidable batting line-up did the trick for them. The effortless chase by the Punjab raised some concerns about the efficancy of Sunrisers’ bowling attack comprising some of the best in the world that includes the likes of South African Dale Steyn, West Indian all-rounder Darren Sammy, Australian Moises Henriques, and Indian bowlers Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Irfan Pathan, Ishant Sharma, Amit Mishra and Karn Sharma.
The Sunrisers have heavily relied on their star batting comprising Aaron Finch and David Warner. Indian hopeful Naman Ojha has risen to the occasion in recent matches and but its captain Shikhar Dhawan, who off late has rediscovered his form. The Knight Riders, on the other hand, are high on confidence following back-to-back victories, the one including against table-toppers Kings XI Punjab, and would look for another straight win against Hyderabad.
KKR have 10 points and will bank on the likes of Gautam Gambhir and Robin Uthappa to take their side home. The line-up includes Jacques Kallis, Morne Morkel, Yusuf Pathan, Vinay Kumar, Piyush Chawla and Manish Pandey; all of whom have proved their mettle in different matches in the tournament.
The Teams:
Sunrisers Hyderabad: Shikhar Dhawan (C), Dale Steyn, David Warner, Darren Sammy, Amit Mishra, Aaron Finch, irfan Pathan, Ishant Sharma, Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Brendan Taylor, M Henriques, Venugopala Rao, Jason Holder, S Aniruddha, Manprit Juneja, K L Rahul, Amit Paunikar, Naman Ojha, Ricky Bhui, Ashish Reddy, Chama Milind, Parvez Rasool, Prashant Parameswaran and Karn Sharma.
Kolkata Knight Riders: Gautam Gambhir (C), Sunil Narine, Jacques Kallis, Robin Uthappa, Piyush Chawla, Yusuf Pathan, Shakib Al Hasan, Morne Morkel, Vinay Kumar, Umesh Yadav, Manish Pandey, Chris Lynn, Pat Cummins, Ryan ten Doeschate, Suryakumar Yadav, Andre Russel, Manvinder Bisla, Veer Pratap Singh, Kuldeep Yadav, Debabrata Das and Sayan Mondal.
