IPL-2024: Sunrisers Hyderabad to Lock Horns with Rajasthan Royals in Qualifier 2
In IPL Cricket, Sunrisers Hyderabad will lock horns with Rajasthan Royals in second Qualifier match at MA Chidambaram Stadium in Chennai today evening.
In the head-to-head 19 battles, Sunrisers Hyderabad has a slight advantage with 10 wins with Rajasthan having won nine. In this tournament, Sunrisers Hyderabad lost to Kolkata Knight Riders in the ‘Qualifier one’ on Tuesday.
On the other hand, Rajasthan, who were chart toppers for most of the tournament, lost their position in the latter stages to KKR. They snapped Royal Challengers Bengaluru’s (RCB) six-match unbeaten streak in the Eliminator match on Wednesday to qualify for Qualifier two. The summit clash of IPL 2024 will take place on Sunday.
Early in the first week of April, Daniel Vettori was out contextualising what a good performance would be for his bowlers. “If you give me eight-an-over, I’ll take it gladly” he said ahead of facing CSK at home as the definition of batting in the tournament had already started to morph. This came a week after his batters plundered 277 at their home ground, and carried on in the same vein in the games ahead. As the tournament progressed and SRH snarred batting records, a clear narrative emerged – this is how a Pat Cummins team will play in the IPL.
There were upsides to this approach, as evidenced over the last two months. In wins, SRH had the best strike rate – 189.51. But most of their defeats were equally sapping. SRH either fly or crash and burn – there has been no middle ground or an ability to limit damages so far, which should pique the interest of Rajasthan Royals.
Sanju Samson’s side arrived in Chennai having made a mockery of the notion of ‘momentum’, proving once again why knockouts always start with a blank slate. A four-game rut was wiped out in one evening against RCB, hurling them in the path of the tournament’s pace-setters. Cummins was quick to shrug off the defeat to KKR in Q1, but it showed SRH were equally capable of being humbled as they were of inflicting that feeling on the opposition. RR, with their recent clinicality, will hope to tap into that.
Squads:
Rajasthan Royals Squad: Yashasvi Jaiswal, Tom Kohler-Cadmore, Sanju Samson(w/c), Riyan Parag, Dhruv Jurel, Rovman Powell, Ravichandran Ashwin, Trent Boult, Avesh Khan, Sandeep Sharma, Yuzvendra Chahal, Shimron Hetmyer, Nandre Burger, Shubham Dubey, Tanush Kotian, Donovan Ferreira, Navdeep Saini, Keshav Maharaj, Kuldeep Sen, Abid Mushtaq, Kunal Singh Rathore
Sunrisers Hyderabad Squad: Travis Head, Abhishek Sharma, Rahul Tripathi, Nitish Reddy, Heinrich Klaasen(w), Abdul Samad, Shahbaz Ahmed, Pat Cummins(c), Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Vijayakanth Viyaskanth, T Natarajan, Sanvir Singh, Umran Malik, Glenn Phillips, Washington Sundar, Jaydev Unadkat, Mayank Agarwal, Aiden Markram, Anmolpreet Singh, Upendra Yadav, Mayank Markande, Jhatavedh Subramanyan, Fazalhaq Farooqi, Marco Jansen, Akash Maharaj Singh
