Hyderabad: Sunrisers Hyderabad will look to bank on their good-looking bowling attack to unsettle Mumbai Indians when the two teams meet in an Indian Premier League (IPL) game here on Thursday.
Hyderabad, led by Kane Williamson in the absence of David Warner who is serving a one-year ban due to a ball-tampering incident, hardly broke sweat during their emphatic nine-wicket victory over Rajasthan Royals in their opening match.
Mumbai Indians, on the other hand, lost a closely fought match against Chennai Super Kings in the tournament opener.
Hyderabad showed in their first game that they have the most diverse bowling attack in the competition. India’s pace warhead Bhuvneshwar Kumar leads the line with his swing bowling while Billy Stanlake has raw pace and Siddarth Kaul can hit the deck. The spinning department, led by Afghanistan’s highly-rated leg-spinner Rashid Khan, also has the likes of Shakib Al Hasan with his orthodox left-arm spin.
Shikhar Dhawan’s form is a boon on the batting front for SRH though their batting depth was not tested during the first match.
Mumbai Indians on the other hand have a star-studded team with skipper Rohit Sharma leading the list.
Rohit would expect a better effort from his batsmen as 165 on a good batting track wasn’t par for the course. Besides Rohit, Evin Lewis, who has two T20 hundreds against India, and the explosive Kieron Pollard would like to show their big-hitting prowess on Thursday.
For Mumbai, the biggest gain from the opening game was young leg-spinner Mayank Markande’s performance on IPL debut. He scalped the wickets of Ambati Rayudu and CSK skipper MS Dhoni.
Mumbai could see all-rounder Hardik Pandya not play due to an ankle injury he picked up in the last game.
