SRH v DD, IPL 2017: Delhi Daredevils seek leverage against formidable Sunrisers Hyderabad
April 19, 2017
NEW DELHI: In short, it’s the clash of the two teams with the best bowling attacks of IPL 2017. The two leading wicket-takers of the season, Bhuvneshwar Kumar (15) and Rashid Khan (9), are part of Sunrisers Hyderabad’s squad. Delhi Daredevils have three bowlers in the top ten wicket-takers’ list: Chris Morris (8), Pat Cummins (7) and Zaheer Khan (7). How these two skilled and varied bowling attacks stack up on the slow and low surface at Uppal’s Rajiv Gandhi International Stadium on Wednesday looks to be the deciding factor of IPL 2017’s 21st game.
On Monday against Kings XI Punjab, SRH skipper David Warner carried his bat on a tricky Hyderabad surface to set up a much-needed win for the defending champions, but it was Purple Cap holder Bhuvneshwar who swung the match with a career-best 5/19, which included the wicket of the heroic Manan Vohra for 95 off 50 balls in the penultimate over. It is that kind of performance from Bhuvneshwar which has kept SRH as one of the teams to beat, carrying on from the success of their bowling unit last season when they won the IPL title.
Daredevils are coming off defeat to table-toppers Kolkata Knight Riders at home, with Manish Pandey hitting an bullish unbeaten 69 to chase down a target of 170 with four wickets and one delivery remaining. Closing out nail-biters like that is going to become imperative for all teams struggling to catch-up with KKR, SRH and Mumbai Indians. Daredevils will hope to make it a hat-trick of wins over SRH, whom they beat both times in 2016 but overall trail 3-5 in head-to-head clashes.
SRH
Hyderabad took the tough call of dropping Australian pace-bowling allrounder Ben Cutting for Afghanistan spin-bowling allrounder Mohammad Nabi against KXIP. If the track again plays slow, Nabi should retain his place. Barinder Sran looks culpable after conceding 29 in two overs, and this could be the time to hand local boy Mohammed Siraj a debut.
Probable XI: 1 David Warner (capt), 2 Shikhar Dhawan, 3 Moises Henriques, 4 Yuvraj Singh, 5 Deepak Hooda, 6 Naman Ojha (wk), 7 Mohammad Nabi, 8 Bhuvneshwar Kumar, 9 Rashid Khan, 10 Mohammed Siraj, 11 Siddharh Kaul
DD
If Corey Anderson is fit, he should slot right back in considering he was Man of the Match in his previous appearance, taking Angelo Mathews’ place. There’s also a very solid case to promote Rishabh Pant up the order, while dropping Karun Nair who’s lean run across all formats since his epic Test triple-century against England in December.
Probable XI: 1 Sanju Samson, 2 Sam Billings, 3 Shreyas Iyer, 4 Rishabh Pant (wk), 5 Karun Nair, 6 Corey Anderson/Angelo Mathews, 7 Chris Morris, 8 Pat Cummins, 9 Amit Mishra, 10 Zaheer Khan (capt), 11 Shahbaz Nadeem
