Almost out of reckoning for a play-off berth, bottom-placed Sunrisers Hyderabad will look to play party-poopers when they take on an equally struggling Punjab Kings in the IPL’s battle of laggards here on Saturday.
Punjab, on the other hand, quite inexplicably found a way to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory against Rajasthan Royals and will be desperate to find an answer to their problems after being placed seventh with six points from nine matches.
The Kings were to well-placed to win their first IPL game of the UAE leg before committing harakari in the last over bowled by Kartik Tyagi. They lost two wickets and scored just one run while needing four to win against Rajasthan.
Despite being to packed with excellent Indian and foreign talent. Punjab Kings have regularly messed up games and skipper KL Rahul will have to address their inconsistency.
Punjab Kings have lacked any kind of stability over last 14 seasons with captains and coaches being to changed frequently.
Sunrisers suffered their seventh defeat on Wednesday after being to blown away by Delhi Capitals. Their play-off chances look less than dim as they have managed just two points after eight games.
In bowling department, Mohammed Shami has been their prime bowler and he did well to pull things back against RR. Young Arshdeep Singh also returned with five wickets as he and Shami bowled out RR to 185 in last game.
However, Punjab’s spinners, especially England’s Adil Rashid, have disappointed and they will need to step up their game in the next few weeks.
Punjab Kings:
KL Rahul (captain), Mayank Agarwal, Arshdeep Singh, Ishan Porel, Shahrukh Khan, Mohammed Shami, Nathan Ellis, Adil Rashid, Murugan Ashwin, Harpreet Brar, Moises Henriques, Chris Jordan, Aiden Markram, Mandeep Singh, Darsan Nalkande, Prabhsimran Singh, Ravi BIshnoi, Utkarsh Singh, Fabian Allen, Saurabh Kumar, Jalaj Saxena.
Sunrisers Hyderabad:
Kane Williamson (Captain), David Warner, Manish Pandey, Sherfane Rutherford, Wriddhiman Saha, Shreevats Goswami, Rashid Khan, Vijay Shankar, Mohammad Nabi, Abhishek Sharma, Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Siddharth Kaul, Khaleel Ahmed, T Natarajan, Basil Thampi, Sandeep Sharma, Shahbaz Nadeem, Abdul Samad, J Suchith, Jason Holder, Virat Singh, Priyam Garg, Kedar Jadhav, Mujeeb-ur-Rahman, Jason Roy.
For Sunrisers, it is all about enjoying the remaining few games and ending on a high.
With Johnny Bairstow, their season’s leading run-getter, pulling out and Australian opener David Warner in poor form, SRH have found the going tough against Delhi.