Chennai: Sunrisers Hyderabad (SRH) have made an awful start to the IPL 2021 after losses to the Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) and Royal Challengers Bangalore (RCB) in their first two matches. On the other side, spirited Mumbai Indians (MI) against KKR proved that why they are called real champions.
Talking first about SRH, all eyes are set whether SRH will play New Zealand skipper Kane Williamson, who is on bench from the start of the tournament. There have already been calls for including Williamson, with former many experts saying that he is required in the SRH line-up. Also, captain and opener David Warner's battle with Trent Boult will be interesting to watch out for.
While their spin wizard Rashid Khan has a knack of reading the pitch well, like he did in the previous match in which he put the skids on RCB batting along with Jason Holder and others. It will also be interesting to see if SRH field pacer Sandeep Sharma, who has the ability to swing the ball in initial overs. Both Bhuvneshwar Kumar and Holder did a great job with the new ball in the last match.
Coming to the Paltans, MI will pose a different challenge since they have power-hitters in their middle and lower order. They have some huge names in their ranks like Rohit Sharma, Quinton de Kock, Kieron Pollard, Pandya brothers but a collective firing has not happened yet. The fact that they have failed in both the matches, in the loss to the RCB and in the win over Kolkata Knight Riders, they will be desperate to continue well against SRH.
MI made a sensational comeback in the match against the Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR). In fact, at the end of the 15th over, Kolkata was cruising and needed just 31 runs off the last 5 overs. But then, a feisty Mumbai side never lost hope and managed a victory by 10 runs.
MI can explode without any warning and it can hurt any opposition in the fray. Mumbai bowling looked sharp under Jasprit Bumrah and spinner Rahul Chahar and they will hope that the bowling unit will continue to roil out polished efforts.
Hyderabad lost both their games while chasing, while MI's only victory came while defending a target.
PROBABLE XI
MI: Rohit Sharma (C), Surya Kumar Yadav, Ishan Kishan, Quinton De Kock, Kieron Pollard, Hardik Pandya, Krunal Pandya, Trent Boult, Jasprit Bumrah, Rahul Chahar, Marco Jensen.
SRH: David Warner (c), Manish Pandey, Jonny Bairstow, Vijay Shankar, Wriddhiman Saha, Jason Holder, Abdul Samad, Rashid Khan, Bhuvneshwar Kumar, T Natarajan, Shahbaz Nadeem