The biggest challenge for the Sunrisers Hyderabad’s (SRH) bowlers would be to contain the Mumbai Indian’s (MI) batting during the death overs. In the last two games, MI managed 106 in the last 6 and 79 in the last 4 respectively. And these were in Dubai and Abu Dhabi respectively. What the likes of Hardik Pandya and Kieron Pollard can achieve in Sharjah, is anyone’s best guess.
For SRH, problems are aplenty and every time they try to address one of them, another one pops up. The main issue for them however, has been that the Warner-Bairstow combo at the top has failed to get going, exposing their relatively inexperienced middle-order. This forced them to accommodate Kane Williamson at the cost of Mohammad Nabi, leaving them with only four specialist bowlers.
The main issue, walking into this game, would be that Bhuvneshwar Kumar is unlikely to recover from this injury. They have quality reserves in form of Sandeep Sharma and Siddharth Kaul, but they will surely miss the leader of their pace battery.
In Priyam Garg, Abhishek Sharma, Abdul Samad and T Natarajan, SRH have found four youngsters who seem to be serving the franchisee well. The skipper would be pleased by how these youngsters have held their nerve under pressure and rescued the team on several occasions.
MI batsmen have done well at all positions. Rohit has two fifties at the top, Ishan Kishan got a 99 at 4, Kieron Pollard’s finishing is at it’s prime, Hardik Pandya turned up with a breezy cameo in the last game. Quinton de Kock and Suryakumar Yadav are the only ones who still need a good innings under their belt, the latter being run-out in the last two games.
MI’s bowlers, after a rusty start, have gone back to their old-selves and all four of MI’s frontline bowlers in Jasprit Bumrah, Trent Boult, Rahul Chahar and James Pattinson have been amongst the wickets. Hardik Pandya’s absence from the bowling line-up hasn’t been much of an issue for the team as yet.
Likely 11s
MI: Rohit Sharma (c), Quinton de Kock (wk), Suryakumar Yadav, Ishan Kishan, Kieron Pollard, Hardik Pandya, Krunal Pandya, James Pattinson, Rahul Chahar, Trent Boult, Jasprit Bumrah
SRH: David Warner (c), Jonny Bairstow (wk), Manish Pandey, Kane Williamson, Priyam Garg, Abhishek Sharma, Abdul Samad, Rashid Khan, Bhuvneshwar Kumar/Sandeep Sharma/Siddarth Kaul, Khaleel Ahmed, T Natarajan
