The two bottom-placed teams, Punjab Kings (PBKS) and SunRisers Hyderabad (SRH), are set to clash in the second day game of the IPL 2021 on Wednesday. While SRH are placed at the bottom of the table and are yet to win a game, PBKS have managed just one win out of their games.
PBKS's Mayank Agarwal was back in action in the previous match against Delhi Capitals, but captain KL Rahul took some time to get his 61 (51 balls). Punjab will hope that their power-hitter batsman Chris Gayle comes into form after failing in the last couple of matches. His West Indian teammate Nicholas Pooran too hasn't got going through to be fair to him he came into bat towards the end of the innings although he got very few balls to face.
Punjab will play their first game in Chennai and it should bring about multiple changes their playing 11. The slow nature of the Chenai track means either Jhye Richardson or Riley Meredith may sit out on the bench paving a way for Moises Henriques or even Fabien Allen. Expect Deepak Hooda to roll his arm over if the pitch grips and turns during the day game.
All eyes will be on SRH, who had made the play-offs last year, but are struggling to come to terms with the slow nature of the pitch at Chepauk.
SRH in their last game made four changes but it didn’t change their luck as they faced another defeat. The Hyderabad club will also look to bolster their middle order, which has been letting them down for the past two matches, and it will be interesting to see if they feature New Zealand skipper Kane Williamson in the match. The Kiwi batsman is recovering from injury.
Coming to the middle order, Kedar Jadhav could make his SRH debut as the club will look to strong its batting. Mohammed Nabi could return against PBKS as he will be another spin option for Warner. Sandeep Sharma’s great IPL record against Chris Gayle (four dismissals) and Mayank Agarwal (three dismissals) may prompt SRH to bring in the pacer.
PROBABLE XI
Punjab Kings: KL Rahul (c), Mayank Agarwal, Chris Gayle, Deepak Hooda, Nicholas Pooran, Shahrukh Khan, Jhye Richardson, Ravi Bishnoi, Mohammed Shami, Riley Meredith, Arshdeep Singh
SunRrisers Hyderabad: David Warner (C), Jonny Bairstow (wk), Manish Pandey, Virat Singh, Vijay Shankar, Abhishek Sharma, Abdul Samad, Rashid Khan, Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Mujeeb Ur Rahman, Khaleel Ahmed
