The Indian Premier League has reached its business end and we are in the final group stage game of the season which is to be played between Sunrisers Hyderabad and Punjab Kings. A dead rubber, as both the teams have been knocked out of the race for the playoffs, both the teams can only hope to give a decent performance to the fans and pray for a smooth transition to the next season. The match, to be played at Mumbai’s Wankhede Stadium, will be the 70th match of the 74-match long tournament and the teams will finally bid goodbye to Mumbai after spending the last few months on the country’s west coast.
what’s at stake?
Punjab Kings and Sunrisers Hyderabad went into the auction with very different philosophies. While Punjab revamped their entire set-up with elite hitters, Sunrisers changed their identity from a top heavy to a middle order powerhouse. SRH dumped their trusted lieutenants at the auction, putting up David Warner, Rashid Khan and Jonny Bairstow for sale, to create a new generation of heroes.
The fight for Punjab is recognized. Does the over-aggressive approach work in a modern T20 match? Or they should take a step back like normal logic.
For SRH, the debate is whether they should move away from Kane Williamson and hand over the reins to a younger and more dynamic player, or should they go back to their old ways which gave them continuity.
form guide
SRH
w, l, l, l
PBKS
L, W, L, W
key players
Nicholas Pooran (SRH): Before his last game, Pooran said that he could have won SRH a few more matches, but ran out of partners. Pooran has recently been made the white-ball captain of West Indies and a statement like this makes his ambitions clear. If he wants to take over the reins of Kane Williamson someday, he will have to go into the final game for SRH.
Kagiso Rabada (PBKS): The revival of Kagiso Rabada as a Powerplay bowler has been a lovely watch. He is the third highest wicket-taker in IPL with 22 wickets and would like to end the season on a high.
Probable playing XI
Sunrisers Hyderabad
Abhishek Sharma, Priyam Garg, Rahul Tripathi, Aiden Markram, Nicholas Pooran (wk), Washington Sundar, Romario Shepherd, Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Fazlhaq Farooqui, Umran Malik, T Natarajan
Punjab Kings
Jonny Bairstow, Shikhar Dhawan, Mayank Agarwal (c), Liam Livingstone, Bhanuka Rajapakse, Jitesh Sharma (wk), Harpreet Brar, Rishi Dhawan/Ishan Porel, Kagiso Rabada, Rahul Chahar, Arshdeep Singh