BENGALURU: The 13th edition of the Indian Premier League has been an intriguing one, where only one team -- Mumbai Indians – have secured Playoffs qualification even after the completion of 50 matches. Only Chennai Super Kings have been ruled out of the race to top four while six other teams are still in the fray for three remaining slots. Royal Challengers Bangalore can grab one of those spots if they manage to beat Sunrisers Hyderabad in Sharjah on Saturday.
It is not going to be any easy for Bangalore, who come into this match under some pressure after back-to-back losses against Chennai and Mumbai Indians. Hyderabad, on the other hand, have a spring in their stride after their impressive victory over Delhi Capitals.
Despite their two losses of late, Bangalore will look for confidence from their win over Hyderabad earlier in the season. To be fair, they have improved further as the tournament progressed. They have looked a much-settled unit with both their bowling and batting department taking responsibility at the middle. If the likes of AB de Villiers, Virat Kohli and Devdutt Padikkal have starred with the bat, Chris Morris and Yuzvendra Chahal have been amongst the wickets.
However, if Navdeep Saini, who has split webbing injury, remains unavailable, one could see Isuru Udana come back into the squad. Dale Steyn might miss out after his below-par game in the last contest. And in the batting front, they could open with Padikkal and Josh Philippe, latter delivering in the last match with 33 runs. It means Aaron Finch might have to warm the bench again. The problem for the Bangalore batting unit has been their ability to find the fence in the middle overs and also lack of contribution from the middle and lower order, which needs to be addressed.
Hyderabad will be aware about that Bangalore weakness and David Warner will be looking for early wickets. They are a team, which pride in their bowling unit. Rashid Khan’s trickery, Sandeep Sharma’s ability to make the new ball talk and T Natarjan’s yorkers can trouble any quality batsmen. It could be a fascinating contest when these set of bowlers come up against the likes of Padikkal, Kohli and de Villiers. It will be a challenge for bowlers considering the size of the boundaries at the venue, where top edges can also fetch maximums.
It will be interesting to see the kind of combination Hyderabad will come for this encounter. The team management will hope Wriddhiman Saha, who scored a brilliant 87 in the last game, recovers from a groin injury issue to take the field. If he does not, they might have to tinker with their foreign combination, which could possibly mean removing Jason Holder or Kane Williamson from the playing XI to bring in wicketkeeper batsman Jonny Bairstow. Irrespective of the combination, Warner, who has accumulated more than 400 runs, will hold the key alongside Karnataka’s Manish Pandey.