Sunrisers Hyderabad aim for playoff spot against Kolkata Knight Riders

Sunrisers Hyderabad, in strong form this season, will look to move closer to the play-offs when they face Kolkata Knight Riders. With key players in form and balanced performances, SRH are favourites against a struggling KKR side

Hyderabad: Former champions, Sunrisers Hyderabad, riding on the collective brilliance, should be hoping to move closer to confirming a berth in the play-offs when it takes on a struggling Kolkata Knight Riders in the IPL league match at the Rajiv Gandhi Stadium here on Sunday afternoon.

Third-placed Sunrisers with 12 points from nine games should find it easy given the way the batting has fired with the openers Travis Head, Abhishek Sharma, Ishan Kishan making a mockery of the power-play and down the order the likes of the ever-reliable Heinrich Klaasen and the much more confident all-rounder Nitish Kumar Reddy chipping in with both bat and ball atcritical junctures.

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The return of Aussie fast bowling great Pat Cummins as captain of Sunrisers only meant more trouble for the opposition given his skills and experience.

But what stood out for the home team was the stunning comeback of pacer Eshan Malinga, in the top three leading wicket-takers this season, after early indifferent form.

His pace-off delivers with those intelligent use of short-balls he struck at regular intervals to keep the team in the hunt in the last five games which Sunrisers has won – either chasing or defending totals.

On the other hand, Knight Riders may take pride in scoring a thrilling win against Lucknow Super Giants in the super over in the last game it played, thanks to the exploits of Rinku Singh and the West Indian Sunil Narine’s brilliant Super Over in which he conceded just two runs.

But, it will be stressing the obvious that Knight Riders has to take its game to the next level and for that to happen, the openers captain Ajinkya Rahane, Tiem Seifert, No. 3 Angkrish Raghuvanshi, the costliest player of this season CameroonGreen at the top and West Indian Rovman Powell, the every-gritty Rinku Singh need to come up with big scores.

They are certainly capable but will they deliver is the big question.

In bowling, pacers Vaibhav Arora and Kartik Tyagi have a task cut out against what is arguably the best batting line-up this season. In spin, the craft and experience of Sunil Narine and Varun Chakravarthy hold the key.

On a pitch expected to be batter-friendly, Sunrisers are favourites unless Knight Riders pull off something sensational under the lights.