Vivo IPL 2017: Sunday, April 9th
Match 6: Sunrisers Hyderabad vs Gujarat Lions
Rajiv Gandhi International Stadium, Hyderabad (Capacity 65,000)
Sunday, April 9th, 2017
4:00pm IST
On paper, the line-ups the Gujarat Lions and Sunrisers Hyderabad boast are the strongest in the IPL and their strong performances in the 2016 editions showed that. While the Gujarat Lions boast an extremely strong batting line-up, with not 1, not 2 but 4 overseas openers in Jason Roy, DR Smith, Brendon McCullum and Aaron Finch. The Sunrisers, on the other hand, have one of the strongest bowling line-ups in the tournament, with India’s death overs bowlers Ashish Nehra and Bhuvneshwar Kumar. In addition, a recent resurgence in their middle order, with Moises Henriques and Yuvraj Singh’s good form, gives them a formidable batting order as well.
Team Form
Sunrisers Hyderabad: W
Gujarat Lions: L
Team News
The high competition for the opening spots will put added pressure on the 4 overseas openers the Gujarat Lions have in their squad. Furthermore, the lack of high quality international level bowling in Praveen Kumar, Dhawal Kulkarni, Shivil Kaushik and Pradeep Sangwan and Shadab Jakati leaves a giant blind spot on a relatively flat track. However, the addition of James Faulkner may arrest that difficulty. The middle order, with an on-song Suresh Raina and an extremely in-form Dinesh Karthik is solid as well.
The Sunrisers’ captain, David Warner will look forward to ending his wretched run of form against a relatively mediocre bowling attack. Shikhar Dhawan, too, will look to extend his fruitful return to top-class cricket. While Mustafizur is still not back, the bowling, with Rashid Khan looking good, as well as the experience of Ashish Nehra and Bhuvneshwar Kumar, is the Sunrisers’ strong point. They will hope not to lose early wickets, due to a soft lower middle order, but will be silently confident of a win against the Lions.
Pitch and Weather Report
Hyderabad’s Rajiv Gandhi International Stadium is expected to draw huge crowds to see the tournament opener. The pitch is expected to be helpful for the batsmen, as it usually is with an average batting first score of 158 being more a testament to the Sunrisers’ bowling line-up than the pitch itself. Temperatures are expected to be in the high thirties and rain is not expected during the game, despite some showers in the early afternoon.
Teams (probable)
Sunrisers Hyderabad:
- David Warner (capt), 2. Shikhar Dhawan, 3. Moises Henriques, 4. Yuvraj Singh, 5. Deepak Hooda, 6. Ben Cutting, 7. Naman Ojha (wk), 8. Bipul Sharma, 9. Rashid Khan, 10. Bhuvneshwar Kumar, 11. Ashish Nehra
Gujarat Lions:
- Brendon McCullum, 2. Jason Roy, 3. Suresh Raina (capt.), 4. Dwayne Smith, 5. Dinesh Karthik (wk), 6. Akshdeep Nath, 7. James Faulkner, 8. Praveen Kumar 9. Pradeep Sangwan 10. Dhawal Kulkarni, 11. Shadab Jakati
Match Prediction
Without Ishan Kishan, Dwayne Bravo and Ravindra Jadeja, the Gujarat Lions batting looks shallow, and the bowling looks extremely superficial against a top-class team. The Sunrisers will walk into the match favourites.
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Vedant Jain is a contributor at CricMetric. For any queries or more information, contact vedantja@usc.edu