SRH look to find their lost rhythm against RR at Uppal

What is the first thing that comes to mind when you think about Sunrisers Hyderabad (SRH) in this Indian Premier League (IPL) season? Their batting rampage, right? Scoring 250 and above multiple times this season has given the impression that they have performed much better than their reality suggests. 

They have won five games but have also lost four in the tournament. When their top order hasn’t carried them on the back of their batting tornado, they have been mediocre as a team. Their pace bowling has looked dodgy in each of their last two games, and as far as their spinners are concerned, only Mayank Markande has had performances worth mentioning. 

Hence, when they’ll be up against the Rajasthan Royals at the Uppal Stadium in Hyderabad on May 2, they’ll have two crucial and season defining tasks at hand. One, they’ll have to win anyhow to ensure they don’t lose three games in a row, and two, they’ll have to get back in winning rhythm, and maintain it for the upcoming league stage games. 

Meanwhile, for the Royals, they are at top of the table with eight wins and 16 points, and the life is a bed of roses for them with five games still to go. All they have to do is keep doing what has worked for them this season.  

SRH vs RR Head to Head 

Overall: Matches 18 | SRH 9 | RR 9

At Uppal: Matches 4 | SRH 3 | RR 1

Venue details and weather conditions

Uppal has been the cauldron of runs where bowlers come to be stripped of all their professional dignity. The average first innings score is 216/5 this season, while the average first innings winning score is 242/5.

Teams have opted to bowl twice in the three games played here, but the team batting first have won two out of their three games largely due to the high scores being posted in the first innings. 

So expect another day where the toss will be inconsequential mostly as runs will rain like cats and dogs at Uppal. Thankfully, that’s the only thing that is supposed to rain there tomorrow as there’s no rain predicted on Accuweather for Hyderabad tomorrow. 

Things to watch out for 

SRH have a chasing problem 

The Sunrisers have had trouble chasing this season, losing three out of four games while batting second. On the other hand, they have won four out of five matches when they have got the opportunity to bowl first. 

The stat is so extreme that it makes them the team with the highest win percentage while batting first and the second-lowest win percentage while chasing. 

In fact, this problem is evident in their batters as well. Travis Head, while batting first, strikes at 233 and averages 58.6. His two fifties and only century this season has come then only. But while batting second, his average drops to 15 and his strike rate to 132. 

This problem gets further exacerbated when you combine it with Aiden Markram’s overall lack of form and Heinrich Klaasen’s dip in the last five matches, where he’s averaging 23.6, which is not the kind of numbers associated with the right-hander recently. 

Death bowling has been SRH’s death 

The Sunrisers' bowling attack has taken the second least number of wickets in the last five overs (14) and has the second-highest economy rate in the phase (12.7). 

Pat Cummins, who was bowling quite well initially, has leaked runs at 13 per over in the last two games and has picked just one wicket. Meanwhile, Bhuvneshwar Kumar, who had built his reputation as a T20 bowler by being spectacular at the death, has an economy of 15.9 at the death this season, and overall, he has gone wicketless in five games this season. 

Only T Natarajan has been good for them at the death, and he has the second-best economy in the phase (10.2) after Jasprit Bumrah. 

Probable XIs 

SRH: Travis Head, Abhishek Sharma, Aiden Markram, Nitish Kumar Reddy, Heinrich Klaasen (wk), Abdul Samad, Shahbaz Ahmed, Pat Cummins (c), Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Jaydev Unadkat, Mayank Markande (IP), T Natarajan 

RR: Yashasvi Jaiswal, Jos Buttler, Sanju Samson (c & wk), Riyan Parag (IP), Dhruv Jurel, Rovman Powell, Shimron Hetmyer, R Ashwin, Trent Boult, Avesh Khan, Sandeep Sharma 

TV and Streaming Details

The match will be telecasted live from 7:30 pm on Star Sports and streamed on Jio Cinema.