Sunrisers Hyderabad will host Chennai Super Kings in their second home game on Friday evening at the Rajiv Gandhi International Stadium. The teams will come face-to-face after incurring losses in their respective preceding matches.
Hyderabad's only win of IPL 2024 so far came at home when they broke records with a gigantic 277 score against Mumbai Indians on March 8.
Their other two matches, both away games, ended in defeat.
After the outing against Mumbai, it appeared as though SRH had finally found their momentum with an all-round effort by batters and bowlers alike but they faltered in Ahmedabad.
No batter managed a score higher than 29 and the lowest economy rate by an SRH bowler was still higher than necessary.
A win here will take them within the sights of the top 4 of the points table, as they already have a positive net run rate owing to their runs carnage against Mumbai.
Hyderabad's opponents, the high-flying Chennai Super Kings were grounded by their first defeat of 2024 at the hands of Delhi Capitals in Vizag at a time when they seemed invincible.
Ruturaj Gaikwad's captaincy under the tutelage of MS Dhoni seemed to be ticking all the boxes but on March 13 their batters failed to fire.
Fans, though, were in for a treat as Dhoni, the batter, took to the field for the first time this year and in typical MSD fashion took Chennai closer to the 192 target.
The defending champions eventually lost by 20 runs. With the loss, CSK dropped from the top of the table to number three with 4 points.
TEAM NEWS
The Wanindu Hasaranga conundrum continues to puzzle SRH and fans alike.
Contrary to previous reports that the Sri Lankan ace was ruled out of the 2024 season, Hyderabad spin coach and Sri Lankan legend Muttiah Muralitharan revealed that they expect Hasaranga to join the SRH camp ahead of the CSK clash.
Purple cap leader Mustafizur Rahman won't be available for CSK as the pacer has reportedly flown back to Bangladesh for visa work ahead of the T20 World Cup.
HEAD-TO-HEAD
The two teams have met 19 times in IPL history. Chennai has a massive lead of 14 wins over SRH.
WEATHER REPORT
The advent of summer will be felt deeply in Hyderabad as mercury is expected to soar to 37°C in the evening at the start of the match. Humidity is predicted to increase gradually as the game progresses with some intermittent clouds present.
SRH PROBABLE XI
Travis Head, Mayank Agarwal, Abhishek Sharma, Aiden Markram, Heinrich Klaasen, Abdul Samad, Shahbaz Ahmed, Pat Cummins (c), Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Mayank Markande, Jaydev Unadkat
CSK PROBABLE XI
Rachin Ravindra, Ruturaj Gaikwad (c), Ajinkya Rahane, Daryl Mitchell, Shivam Dube, Sameer Rizvi, Ravindra Jadeja, MS Dhoni, Deepak Chahar, Matheesha Pathirana, Maheesh Theekshana
FULL SQUADS
SUNRISERS HYDERABAD: Pat Cummins(c),Travis Head, Mayank Agarwal, Abhishek Sharma, Aiden Markram, Heinrich Klaasen(w), Abdul Samad, Shahbaz Ahmed, Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Mayank Markande, Jaydev Unadkat, Nitish Reddy, Washington Sundar, Umran Malik, Glenn Phillips, Upendra Yadav, Rahul Tripathi, T Natarajan, Anmolpreet Singh, Jhatavedh Subramanyan, Sanvir Singh, Fazalhaq Farooqi, Marco Jansen, Akash Maharaj Singh
CHENNAI SUPER KINGS: Ruturaj Gaikwad(c), Rachin Ravindra, Ajinkya Rahane, Daryl Mitchell, Shivam Dube, Ravindra Jadeja, Sameer Rizvi, MS Dhoni(w), Deepak Chahar, Tushar Deshpande, Mustafizur Rahman, Matheesha Pathirana, Shardul Thakur, Shaik Rasheed, Nishant Sindhu, Mitchell Santner, Maheesh Theekshana, Moeen Ali, Devon Conway, Ajay Jadav Mandal, Prashant Solanki, Mukesh Choudhary, Simarjeet Singh, RS Hangargekar, Aravelly Avanish