PRE MATCH ANALYSIS
Follow UsSunrisers Hyderabad might have lost their last four encounters but they are still in a much better position than Kolkata Knight Riders in the race to the Indian Premier League 2022 playoffs. The Orange Army have had a weird campaign so far. They started this season with a couple of defeats before going on a five-match winning streak. Kane Williamson was still struggling but the rest of them continued to perform and it looked like Hyderabad would have little trouble qualifying for the playoffs.
However, their fortunes turned around pretty quickly. Their fast bowlers have been way below-par in the last few games, while Williamson’s presence at the top has done a lot more harm than good. Despite all the flaws, all SRH have to do is win their remaining three matches and they will give themselves a great chance of making it through to the playoffs. Meanwhile, Kolkata can’t go beyond 14 points and will need a lot more results to go in their favour if they want to break into the top four, but the chances of this happening are very minimal.
Williamson and his seamers continue to struggle
It wouldn’t be wrong if we say Williamson has been the worst opener in this competition. Yes, there are some openers and quality batters who have struggled to get runs but none of them have had as negative an impact as Williamson. The right-hander from New Zealand has managed only 199 runs in 11 innings at a horrible strike rate of 96.13. Amongst batters who have played at least 200 deliveries this season, Williamson clearly has the worst strike rate. In fact, if you take the same criteria, he has the fourth-worst strike rate for a batter in an IPL season.
The 31-year-old hasn’t been dismissed by a spinner yet in this season but his strike rate of 98.44 gives zero headaches to the opposition. The fast bowlers have simply stuck to full and good length deliveries against Williamson and that has led to his downfall almost every single time. The likes of Abhishek Sharma, Rahul Tripathi, Aiden Markram and Nicholas Pooran have been amongst runs but SRH desperately need their captain to return to his best in the remaining fixtures. Well, it’s not just Williamson, the fast bowling unit too needs to step up.
The above graphic tells you the entire story. During Hyderabad’s five-match winning steak, Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Umran Malik, Marco Jansen and T Natarajan were consistently delivering and were making things easier for their batters. However, a lot has changed in the last few games. Jansen has been dropped after a couple of rough outings, while Natarajan has missed the last two games because of an injury. Bhuvneshwar has been economical but has only picked up one wicket in the last four matches. Meanwhile, Malik has leaked runs at 12.5 in the last three encounters and hasn’t picked up a single wicket. This all will have to change quickly if SRH are looking for a turnaround.
Just when KKR got their combination right…
The Knight Riders looked a lot more settled side with Pat Cummins and Tim Southee sharing the new ball in their previous match against Mumbai Indians. Aaron Finch was dropped and Venkatesh Iyer and Ajinkya Rahane were asked to open. Varun Chakaravarthy too made his return and all the moves clicked as Kolkata defeated Mumbai by 52 runs. However, they will once again have to make at least one significant change to their winning combination with Cummins being ruled out of the remainder of the IPL 2022 with a minor hip injury.
A simple option would be to replace him with Sri Lankan bowling all-rounder Chamika Karunaratne. However, what if Umesh Yadav is fit? The right-arm paceman hasn’t played the last two games because of a calf injury and would walk into the side if he is match-ready. If that happens, Kolkata will have the option of bringing in Sam Billings in place of either Rahane or Sheldon Jackson.
Bowl short to KKR batters
One of the biggest talking points to emerge from Kolkata's last match against Mumbai was the way in which their batters got out like nine pins against back of length/short deliveries. This has been their problem throughout the season as they have been dismissed 28 times in a similar manner. No other team has been dismissed to back of length/short balls against pace more than 16 times this season.
Two of their most important batters - Shreyas Iyer and Andre Russell - have got out to the short ball ploy four times each this season, the joint-most dismissals for a batter on such deliveries against pace. In fact, nine KKR batters have got out to back of length/short balls against pace twice or more times this season. Malik, Jansen and Kartik Tyagi, you know what to do!
Win the toss, bat first?
When it comes to white-ball cricket, especially T20s, most of the teams like bowling first, irrespective of the conditions. However, the last five matches at Maharashtra Cricket Association Stadium in Pune have been won by the side batting first and the winning margins have also been pretty decent. Chennai Super Kings did defend a total of 202, but apart from that, all the remaining four first-innings totals have been less than 180. It was at this very venue Kolkata were bundled out for 101 while chasing a target of 177 against Lucknow Super Giants last week.
Probable XIs
Kolkata Knight Riders - Ajinkya Rahane, Venkatesh Iyer, Shreyas Iyer (c), Nitish Rana, Rinku Singh, Andre Russell, Sunil Narine, Sheldon Jackson (wk), Umesh Yadav/Chamika Karunaratne, Tim Southee, Varun Chakaravarthy.
Sunrisers Hyderabad - Abhishek Sharma, Kane Williamson (c), Rahul Tripathi, Aiden Markram, Nicholas Pooran (wk), Shashank Singh/Abdul Samad, Jagadeesha Suchith, Marco Jansen, Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Umran Malik, Kartik Tyagi/T Natarajan (subject to fitness).
