Dubai: Sunrisers Hyderabad will face Rajasthan Royals in the Indian Premier League at Dubai International Cricket Stadium on Sunday (October 11). Although the Rajasthan Royals had a brilliant start to their IPL campaign, they remain near the bottom of the IPL points table with just four points out of a possible twelve.
They have lost all of their last four games, a poor run that has coincided with the poor form of captain Steve Smith and Sanju Samson. However, they could include star all-rounder Ben Stokes for this match, whose quarantine period ended on Saturday (October 10). His addition should give a much-needed boost to the Rajasthan Royals middle order, which has lacked this season.
Jofra Archer and Rahul Tewatia impressed with the bowling in recent games, the Royals would be hopeful of a much-awaited win on Sunday. On the other hand, Sunrisers Hyderabad come into this fixture on the back of an extraordinary 69-run win over bottom-placed Kings XI Punjab. Despite losing Mitchell Marsh and Bhuvneshwar Kumar due to injuries, SRH have fared well so far with Rashid Khan at his frightening best in the middle overs.
David Warner and Jonny Bairstow’s form at the top of the order only sweetens the deal for the 2016 IPL champions as they fixed the IPL 2020 trophy as their bird-eye. There isn’t much to separate the two teams in terms of head-to-head record, with the Sunrisers having won six of their eleven clashes with the Royals.
Nevertheless, both teams look well-matched on paper, especially with the inclusion of Stokes, which paves the way for an exciting start to the double-header on Sunday.
Squads:
Rajasthan Royals: Jofra Archer, Jaydev Unadkat, Varun Aaron, Aniruddha Joshi, Sanju Samson (wk), Steven Smith (captain), David Miller, Riyan Parag, Shreyas Gopal, Tom Curran, Shashank Singh, Mahipal Lomror, Oshane Thomas, Mayank Markande, Anuj Rawat, Kartik Tyagi, Akash Singh, Manan Vohra, Ankit Rajpoot, Andrew Tye, Rahul Tewatia, Robin Uthappa, Yashasvi Jaiswal
Sunrisers Hyderabad: David Warner (captain), Siddarth Kaul, Shahbaz Nadeem, Kane Williamson, Vijay Shankar, Jason Holder, Basil Thampi, Sandeep Sharma, Bavanaka Sandeep, Billy Stanlake, Fabian Allen, Virat Singh, Sanjay Yadav, Abdul Samad, Jonny Bairstow, Manish Pandey, Wriddhiman Saha (wk), Mohammad Nabi, Abhishek Sharma, Priyam Garg, Rashid Khan, Bhuvneshwar Kumar, K Khaleel Ahmed, T Natarajan, Shreevats Goswami
