The eighth match of the 2024 edition of the Indian Premier League will be played at the Rajiv Gandhi International Stadium in Hyderabad on Wednesday between Pat Cummins-led Sunrisers Hyderabad and Hardik Pandya’s Mumbai Indians.
Both the newly-appointed skippers had a lukewarm start to the season as their teams lost their respective first matches. The two teams will be eager to make a comeback and collect their first two points of the T20 league.
MI used Dewald Brevis as their impact player in the first match but the scales could tilt in favor of Nuwan Thushara who could add another layer to the MI pace bowling attack while SRH could hand a potential IPL debut to the 2019 ICC Cricket World Cup Final hero Travis Head.
What has happened so far?
Mumbai Indians are currently placed in the seventh place in the points table owing to their disappointing loss against Gujarat Titans by six runs. It was a poor performance by the Mumbai batters as they failed to chase an easy target of 169 runs in the allotted 20 overs.
Jasprit Bumrah was the top performer with the ball as he picked three wickets while Gerald Coetzee also scalped two wickets as the bowlers did a good job in the first innings restricting the Titans to a score of 168 runs. However, the batters failed to live up to the expectations as they fell short of six runs despite Dewald Brevis and Rohit Sharma’s impressive knocks of 46 and 43 runs respectively.
Speaking of Sunrisers Hyderabad, they lost their first game against Kolkata Knight Riders by 4 runs as the Knight Riders’ batters unleashed carnage in the first innings. Owing to a 64-run knock by Andre Russell, KKR smacked 208 runs.
Chasing the target, the Sunrisers did a brilliant job with Klaasen smacking 63 runs and the opening pair of Mayank Agarwal and Abhishek Sharma pitching in with 32 runs each. However, their efforts went in vain as SRH fell short in the last over of the run-chase.
Head to Head Record
Mumbai Indians have an edge over Sunrisers Hyderabad in the head-to-head records. The two teams have faced each other in a total of 21 matches and MI has emerged victorious on 12 occasions while the remaining nine games saw SRH winning the battle.
Key Players
Heinrich Klaasen (Sunrisers Hyderabad): Heinrich Klaasen was the top performer for Sunrisers Hyderabad when they clashed against Kolkata Knight Riders in their opening match. The wicketkeeper-batter delivered a top-notch performance by smacking 63 runs off just 29 balls as SRH had to chase 209 runs in the allotted 20 overs.
Klassen will be eager to replicate his heroics on Wednesday as SRH would want to open their account in the points table by grabbing their first win of the season. One of the best and most feared T20 batters in the world, Klaasen is the only undroppable player apart from Cummins in a star-studded overseas contingent put together by the Kavya Maran-owned franchise.
Jasprit Bumrah (Mumbai Indians): Though Mumbai Indians lost their first match to Gujarat Titans, it was a Jasprit Bumrah show at the Narendra Modi Cricket Stadium in Ahmedabad. The seamer dished out a great performance as he picked three wickets of Wriddhiman Saha, Sai Sudharsan, and David Miller.
Jasprit Bumrah was the best performer for Mumbai Indians in their first match of IPL 2024
Bumrah conceded only 14 runs in his four overs to maintain an excellent economy rate of 3.4 and help Mumbai restrict the Titans to a score of 168 runs in their allotted 20 overs. The bowler’s heroics in international cricket are secret to none and thus it should be no surprise that the seamer would be the most important player for Mumbai on Wednesday.
Team News from Both Camps
Mumbai Indians playing XI is likely to witness a big change this season. There is a change in the leadership, with Hardik Pandya making a comeback to the Mumbai camp and donning the captain hat instead of Rohit Sharma.
Suryakumar Yadav is likely to be unavailable because of his injury in MI’s second match as well. In addition, the seamers Dilshan Madushanka and Jason Behrendroff have been ruled out for the whole season, and Kwena Maphaka and Luke Wood have been named as their replacement.
Speaking of Sunrisers Hyderabad, they would be without the services of their spinner Wanindu Hasaranga as the bowler is expected to miss the first few matches due to the ban put by ICC as the Sri Lankan all-rounder accumulated a few demerit points forcing him to come out of Test retirement ahead of the Bangladesh series.
Predicted XIs
Sunrisers Hyderabad: Mayank Agarwal, Travis Head, Rahul Tripathi, Heinrich Klaasen (wk), Abhishek Sharma, Shahbaz Ahmed, Marco Jansen, Pat Cummins ©, Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Mayank Markande, T Natarajan
Mumbai Indians: Rohit Sharma, Ishan Kishan (wk), Tilak Varma, Naman Dhir, Hardik Pandya ©, Tim David, Shams Mulani, Gerald Coetzee, Piyush Chawla, Jasprit Bumrah, Luke Wood
Prediction
Sunrisers Hyderabad and Mumbai Indians had a poor start to the tournament as they lost their respective first matches to the Kolkata Knight Riders and Gujarat Titans. The two teams are likely to be low on confidence but would be eager to get back to the winning ways on Wednesday.
Though both sides have a good squad at their disposal, the chances of Mumbai Indians winning the content are high as they boast of a better team combination on paper.