Former champions Sunrisers Hyderabad will look for a fresh start to their Indian Premier League (IPL) 2019 campaign when they host a confident Delhi Capitals side at Hyderabad on Sunday.
Hyderabad have suffered defeats in their previous two games and would be desperate to get back to winning ways. In contrast, Delhi are coming off two back-to-back victories against Royal Challengers Bangalore (RCB) and a strong Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) outfit.
Delhi opener Shikhar Dhawan will be keen to build on to his new found form ahead of the World Cup and also help Capitals continue their winning run. After Friday's win over KKR, Delhi have climbed to the fourth spot with eight points from seven matches and they would not want to slide down the ladder at any cost.
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Dhawan roared back into form with an unbeaten 97 off 63 balls to power Delhi to a seven-wicket win overs hosts KKR.
Chasing 179, Rishabh Pant (46 off 31 balls) played a perfect second fiddle to Dhawan, curbing his rash shots and showing immense maturity in a 105-run partnership from 69 balls, which virtually killed the contest as Delhi reached the target with seven balls to spare.
Although Dhawan missed out on a well-deserved century, he must have got his confidence back and he would like to continue the good job.
Besides Dhawan and Pant, skipper Shreyas Iyer and Prithvi Shaw have also been among runs and the Delhi batsmen would be looking to fire in unison against Hyderabad.
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Even Delhi's bowling unit comprising Kagiso Rabada, Chris Morris, Ishant Sharma did well to restrict KKR on a good batting track.
Despite the defeats in their previous two outings, Hyderabad will draw confidence from the fact that they had thrashed Delhi when the two teams met last time in Ferozshah Kotla.
Having restricted Delhi to 129 for eight, the Hyderabad achieved the target in 18.3 overs, handing the home team a five-wicket defeat.
Although Hyderabad looked threatening in their first three games when David Warner and Jonny Bairstow stitched century-plus stands, once the duo got out cheaply, the Hyderabad middle-order was in complete disarray.
Hyderabad's middle-order fell apart against Mumbai Indians and Kings XI Punjab in their last two games with the likes of Vijay Shankar, Manish Pandey, Deepak Hooda and Yusuf Pathan falling flat.
On the bowling front, the pace trio of Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Sandeep Sharma and Siddharth Kaul have been decent while the Afghan spin duo of Rashid Khan and Mohammad Nabi have also been impressive in the middle overs.
But they failed to contain Kings XI Punjab batsmen, especially KL Rahul, the other day.
Hyderabad will hope that their bowlers give a good account of themselves against the Delhi batsmen on Saturday.
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The Teams (from):
Delhi Capitals: Shreyas Iyer (c), Prithvi Shaw, Shikhar Dhawan, Rishabh Pant (wk), Colin Ingram, Keemo Paul, Axar Patel, Rahul Tewatia, Amit Mishra, Kagiso Rabada, Ishant Sharma, Hanuma Vihari, Ankush Bains, Harshal Patel, Manjot Kalra, Chris Morris, Sherfane Rutherford, Jalaj Saxena, Sandeep Lamichhane, Trent Boult, Avesh Khan, Nathu Singh, Bandaru Ayyappa, Colin Munro.
Sunrisers Hyderabad: Kane Williamson (c), Basil Thampi, Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Deepak Hooda, Manish Pandey, David Warner, Rashid Khan, Mohammad Nabi, Shakib Al Hasan, Yusuf Pathan, Jonny Bairstow (wk), Wriddhiman Saha, Martin Guptill, Vijay Shankar, T Natarajan, Ricky Bhui, Sandeep Sharma, Siddarth Kaul, Shreevats Goswami, Khaleel Ahmed, Billy Stanlake, Abhishek Sharma, Shahbaz Nadeem.
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Match starts at 8 PM IST.
(PTI)
