The Sunrisers Hyderabad will need to deliver in their clash against the Mumbai Indians today. This is their penultimate match of the season, and they need all the points they can gather to seal a spot in the playoffs. The Hyderabad side has slipped from a relatively comfortable position, with consecutive losses in their last two matches. Their loss on Saturday to the Pune Supergiants on Saturday by 12 runs was a particularly heartbreaking one, as they could not chase down what should have been an easy target of 149. The defending champions have 13 points from 12 matches and are fourth on the table ahead of the Kings XI Punjab by 3 points. A win in both of the remaining matches will power them to the playoffs, which is what they would be looking to do.
With the Sunrisers captain David Warner in spectacular form and Yuvraj’s measured innings in the middle order against Pune, Sunrisers will be hoping for them to continue with their consistency and take them to the playoffs. Also in the bowling, Siddharth Kaul can be a possible threat for the Mumbai Indians who produced an impressive spell of four for 29 against Pune.
For the Mumbai Indians, Kieron Pollard being back in form is a big boost. Lendl Simmons’ performance in the last match has also given an extra edge to their opening pair with aggressive Parthiv Patel on the other end. Mumbai’s spin attack with Harbhajan Singh and Karn Sharma who took three wickets each can trouble the Sunrisers batsmen.
When
08 May 2017, 2000 Hrs IST
Where
Rajiv Gandhi International Cricket Stadium, Hyderabad
Head to Head
Overall: Matches played – 9, Sunrisers Hyderabad Won – 4, Mumbai Indians Won – 5.
Squads:
Mumbai Indians: Rohit Sharma (C), Lendl Simmons, Mitchel Johnsohn, Mitchell McClenghan, Nitish Rana, Parthiv Patel, Saurabh Tiwary, Shreyas Gopal, Tim Southee, Lasith Malinga, Krunal Pandya, Keiron Pollard, Ambati Rayudu, Asela Gunaratne, Harbhajan Singh, Hardik Pandya, Jagdish Suchith, Jaspreet Bumrah, Jos Buttler, Karn Sharma and Vinay Kumar.
Sunrisers Hyderabad: David Warner (C ), Tanmay Agarwal, Ricky Bhui, Bipul Sharma, Ben Cutting, Shikhar Dhawan, Eklavya Dwivedi, Moises Henriques, Deepak Hooda, Chris Jordan, Siddharth Kaul, Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Ben Laughlin, Abhimanyu Mithun, Mohammad Nabi, Mohammed Siraj, Mustafizur Rahman, Ashish Nehra, Naman Ojha (wk), Rashid Khan, Vijay Shankar, Barinder Sran, Pravin Tambe, Kane Williamson and Yuvraj Singh.
Predictions:
- Mumbai Indians are the favourites to win the match, as they bring some extraordinary form and momentum into this game. All departments are firing, and they have fielded extraordinarily well in the tournament – something that has been missing in the other squads.
- SRH will be without the services of the experienced Ashish Nehra – who injured his hamstring in the previous match, and hence the team will expect Bhuvneshwar Kumar to return a rich haul of wickets. The current Purple Cap holder, Bhuvneshwar has outstanding numbers against the Mumbai Indians; he has 12 wickets in 7 matches against MI and an economy rate of 5.42.
- Rohit Sharma has a dismal record against SRH; he has scored a total of 102 runs in nine innings against SRH with the highest score of 24. In his last three innings against SRH, Rohit has been dismissed for scores of 5, 5 & 4. We expect that to change today, with the skipper riding high on his team’s success and his own recent batting.