The second game of the double-header on Super Saturday is slated between Royal Challengers Bangalore (RCB) and Sunrisers Hyderabad (SRH) at Sharjah.
After a thumping win over Delhi Capitals (DC) in their last encounter in the Indian Premier League (IPL) 2020, a buoyant SRH side will be hungry to devour another couple of points.
From 12 matches in the competition, SRH has only managed to garner 10 points and have lost three out of their last five games they played.
The best David Warner’s men can do is reaching 14 points and hope of having a better net run-rate than other teams, in order to qualify for the Playoffs. SRH’s scenario of qualification, therefore, will be dependent on the fate of their competitors.
At the second place in the points table in Virat Kohli’s RCB side, with 14 points in 10 games. The Challengers have been a revelation in the tournament and are contenders for the top spots in the IPL Playoffs.
However, RCB’s recent form is a point of concern as they have lost their last two encounters in the competition.
CSK shocked one and all with their comprehensive win over RCB. Subsequently, Mumbai Indians (MI), then, managed to clinch a couple of points over RCB, on the back of impressive performances from Jasprit Bumrah and Surya Kumar Yadav.
With MI booking their Playoff berth, the competition is for the next three places between the rest of the teams barring CSK. The intricate situation of the points table makes the tournament brilliantly poised for a thrilling group stage finish, with action set to go down to the wire.
Warner’s return to form was welcome by the SRH franchise. The bold move to replace Jonny Bairstow with Wriddhiman Saha paid rich dividends for VVS Laxman and Co.
It remains to be seen whether lightning strikes twice for the Sunrisers with the Warner-Saha alliance at the top. That said, their bowling unit has hunted in packs.
Meanwhile, RCB’s bowling front was exposed in the last couple of games. Therefore, the key clash in the match should be between SRH batsmen and RCB bowlers.
Predicted XI:
RCB:
Josh Philippe, Devdutt Padikkal, Virat Kohli (c), AB de Villiers (wk), Gurkeerat Singh Mann, Shivam Dube, Chris Morris, Washington Sundar, Dale Steyn, Mohammed Siraj, Yuzvendra Chahal
SRH:
David Warner (c), Wriddhiman Saha (wk), Manish Pandey, Kane Williamson, Vijay Shankar, Jason Holder, Abdul Samad, Rashid Khan, Shahbaz Nadeem, Sandeep Sharma, T Natarajan.
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