Sunrisers Hyderabad will take on Punjab Kings in the 14th match of the 16th edition of the Indian Premier League on Sunday at the Rajiv Gandhi International Stadium.
What have they done so far?
Sunrisers finished in eighth position at the end of the previous edition of IPL. To their dismay, despite making several changes, the team from Hyderabad struggled to get going in their first game in the 2023 edition of IPL as well.
SRH lost their first game to Rajasthan Royals by 72 runs. Despite boasting a robust bowling line-up including skipper Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Umran Malik, Adil Rashid and T Natarajan, SRH failed to make a dent in RR’s innings, allowing them to put up a total of 203. In return, sadly, SRH could only muster 131 runs for the loss of eight wickets.
However, Aiden Markram, Henrich Klassen and Marco Jansen have returned to the Hyderabad side after their respective international duties. Markram, who is coming into the tournament on the back of the excellent form, will be leading the side. In South Africa’s recent game against the Netherlands, Markram played an exceptional knock and 175 runs, guiding SA to an ODI series win against the Netherlands.
Markram’s presence in the middle order, along with Klassen, will bolster SRH’s batting line-up and will give a massive boost to Abhishek Sharma, Mayank Agarwal and Rahul Tripathi.
Furthermore, Jansen, despite being on a lean patch of late, is one of the fiercest fast bowlers in the world right now and can also play a handy knock down the order whenever required. SRH will be a more balanced unit when they take on PBKS on Sunday.
Markram joined the SRH squad after fulfilling international commitments
Punjab Kings, on the flip side, will be returning to action on the back of consecutive wins against, for only the third time in the history of the IPL. PBKS won their first game against KKR by seven runs and their second game against the runners-up of IPL 2022, RR.
Skipper Shikhar Dhawan played a handy knock of 40 runs in the first game. Bhanuka Rajapaksa, too, chipped in with a crucial knock of 50 runs. Sam Curran, down the order, played a beautiful cameo of 26 runs. The man of the match, however, was Arshdeep Singh, who bagged three wickets.
Dhawan has been in sublime form, and with how PBKS has been playing, he’s executed his plans perfectly as a captain as well. He scored 86 runs against RR and will be one of the favorites to take the attack to SRH’s bowlers on Sunday as well.
Head to Head record
SRH and PBKS have locked horns 20 times in the IPL. Interestingly, SRH has bragging rights for having won 13 encounters, while PBKS have only managed seven wins. This is arguably one of the most dominating records by an IPL team against their opponent.
The first match between the two teams was played back in 2013 when the team from Hyderabad won by five wickets.
Key Players
Harry Brook (Sunrisers Hyderabad): Brook’s introduction to the IPL didn’t go as well as he thought it would. He failed to make an impact against RR. Brook was purchased by the team from Hyderabad for a whopping ₹13.25 crore.
Harry Brook scored only 13 runs in SRH’s first match
However, despite a poor performance in the first game, he remains a force to be reckoned with. Brook has been the talk of the town ever since he announced his arrival on the international team.
He has four test hundreds to his name and averages over 100 in the longest format of the game. Furthermore, he was also a part of the England side that won the T20 World Cup. Undoubtedly, SRH will be banking on him to turn things around for them in the subsequent games.
Shikhar Dhawan (Punjab Kings): He is second on the list of the batsmen with the most runs in the history of the IPL. Shikhar has scored 6,370 runs in 208 matches and is just behind former Indian skipper Virat Kohli.
While he has struggled to find his name in the national squad, Dhawan has been the most sought-after cricketer in the IPL. Despite dabbling between several teams throughout the 16 editions of the IPL, Dhawan started off the 2023 season with PBKS in an extraordinary fashion. He was instrumental in both PBKS’ victories and scored 40 and 86 runs in the first two games respectively.
Being one of the most experienced batters on the side, the team will be counting on him to take them to a hattrick of victories in the IPL for the first time.
Predicted XIs
Sunrisers Hyderabad: Mayank Agarwal, Abhishek Sharma, Aiden Markram ©, Harry Brook, Rahul Tripathi, Glenn Phillips (wk), Washington Sundar, Marco Jansen, Umran Mailk, T Natarajan, Bhuvneshwar Kumar
Punjab Kings: Shikhar Dhawan ©, Prabhsimran Singh, Sam Curran, Jitesh Sharma (wk), Sikandar Raza, Shahrukh Khan, Kagiso Rabada, Nathan Ellis, Harpreet Brar, Rahul Chahar, Arshdeep Singh
Prediction
While Punjab Kings are riding high on confidence after winning consecutive games at the beginning of the IPL, Sunrisers Hyderabad was without three crucial players, including their skipper, who has now returned. We predict SRH will hand PBKS their first defeat of the season on Sunday.