Today it is the 38th match of this 12th edition of IPL 2019 in which Hyderabad try to keep Hyderabad down in the match to win the match against him.
The Sunrisers Hyderabad team will play against Kolkata Knight Riders in their home ground today. Her attempt will be to curb the aggressive batsman Andre Russell's. Both teams have the same number of points, although the Hyderabad team has played a matchless. In the previous match, Hyderabad defeated Chennai Super King and broke the three-match losing streak.
Sunrisers Hyderabad and Kolkata Knight Riders are in the same boat now. Stuck in the middle of the table with eight points each, both the sides need to get back to winning ways if they hope to progress to the IPL-12 playoffs.
The KKR team also would like to break the line of defeat. In the last four matches, he has not won. The race for the playoff is stuck. Both teams know the importance of victory in such a way.
After a high-scoring loss on Friday night, KKR will be licking their wounds and will be ruing on the lost opportunity against the Royal Challengers Bangalore. A little bit of initiative by the middle-order a batsman like Shubman Gill and Robin Uthappa might have tilted the scales in the favour of KKR with Andre Russell biding his time in the dug-out.
KKR Russell and Nitish Rana gave almost victory against RCB. On top of the order, he had a big responsibility in the death overs. Russell has also raised questions in the lower order. On the other hand, hosts Hyderabad too heavily depends on their openers David Warner. His concern will also increase because Johnny Bairstow will leave for England this week.
But while KKR can bank on Russell to bail them out coming in down the order, SRH have no such luxury. They will have to bank on Warner and Bairstow again to fire in tandem and hope that they can give a big enough total for the likes of Rashid Khan & Co. to defend.
The Knight Riders will be worried about the form of their strike bowler Kuldeep Yadav with the Chinaman bowler only claiming four wickets in nine games so far.
Probable XI
KKR: Dinesh Karthik (Capt.), Robin Uthappa, Chris Lynn, Shubman Gill, Andre Russell, Sunil Narine, Piyush Chawla, Kuldeep Yadav, Nitish Rana, Prasidh Krishna and Harry Gurney/Matt Kelly
SRH: Kane Williamson (Capt.), Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Deepak Hooda, Sandeep Sharma, Siddarth Kaul, Khaleel Ahmed, Yusuf Pathan, David Warner, Rashid Khan, Jonny Bairstow and Vijay Shankar
