Comfortably placed at top the points table, Sunrisers Hyderabad will look to extend their five-match winning streak when they face bottom-placed Delhi Daredevils at the Ferozshah Kotla here on Thursday.
The Kane Williamson-led side have more or less assured themselves of a place in the play-off after winning eight of their 10 matches to pocket 16 points while Delhi’s campaign has been lacklustre with just three wins from 10 outings.
Delhi’s woes this season has been compounded by an inconsistent opening partnership, despite teenager Prithvi Shaw going great guns blazing at the top.
Besides Shaw, young skipper Shreyas Iyer and stumper Rishabh Pant form the backbone of Delhi’s batting and would be hoping to put on another brave effort against the best bowling line-up this season.
It would also be interesting to see whether Delhi still persists with Australian Glenn Maxwell, who had a torrid season so far.
On the bowling front, New Zealander Trent Boult have led his resources well with the young Avesh Khan, Englishman Liam Plunkett and all-rounder Vijay Shankar while leg-spinner Amit Mishra have also been amongst the wickets.
Coming to the Sunrisers, its been their bowling unit led by the overseas spin twins — Afghan Rashid Khan and Bangladeshi Shakib Al Hasan — who have been instrumental in defending sub-150 scores.
The spinners have been well supported by the pace department led by fit-again Bhuvneshwar Kumar and young Siddharth Kaul.
Their batting mainly centres around the skipper — Williamson — who has repeatedly dug them out of troubled waters, scoring five half centuries so far in this season.
The inconsistent top order comprising the likes of Shikhar Dhawan, Alex Hales and Manish Pandey need to shoulder the responsibility in case Williamson fails to deliver.
Veteran Yusuf Pathan has of late found back his groove with his cameos lower down the order along side the left-hander Shakib and stumper Wriddhiman Saha.
Head to Head:
DD 4 – 7 SRH
At the venue, Feroz Shah Kotla, New Delhi :
DD 1 – 2 SRH
Probable XI:
Delhi Daredevils :
Pritvi Shaw, Glenn Maxwell, Shreyas Iyer, Rishabh Pant, Naman Ojha, Vijay Shankar, Daniel Christian, Liam Plunkett, Amit Mishra, Avesh Khan, Trent Boult
Sunrisers Hyderabad :
Alex Hales, Shikhar Dhawan, Kane Williamson, Manish Pandey, Yusuf Pathan, Shakib Al Hasan, Wriddhiman Saha, Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Rashid Khan, Siddarth Kaul, Sandeep Sharma
It will be interesting to see if Delhi’s batsmen can pass the stern test from the Sunrisers bowlers and halt their winning run.
Ankit Vaishnav
