At the news conference after Rajasthan Royals’ embarrassing loss on Friday, the word that kept coming up was “intent.” Kumar Sangakkara said it was embarrassing that Gujarat Titans were so much better than them, and he lamented the lack of batting intent and their failure to build on a good start.
This has been a common theme for this team, as they’ve lost the most wickets (32) and made the most runs (7.82) between overs 7 and 15 of all teams this season. In the second part of the season, Jos Buttler’s performance has been getting worse, which has made the middle order problems even worse and led to results like the one on Friday.
Sangakkara chose to forget about the bad result against the champions and thinks that his team will get back on track. The extent to which RR’s season has gone wrong can be seen by the fact that they’ve won as many games in their last five outings (one) as their opponents for Sunday, who are in ninth place and have only won one game in their last five games. Sunday gives them the best chance to make up for recent mistakes and stay in the race for the playoffs. It also gives them the best chance to beat a good team.
This season, SRH’s expectations and the way things have turned out haven’t even been in the same city. This year, SRH put together a team with a lot of great T20 players at the auction. However, more than a month into the season, they are still just a group of people who can’t work as a team.
This year, SRH’s problems were made worse by Harry Brook’s problems at the plate. The Englishman came with a huge reputation for hitting the ball hard and was signed for a lot of money (INR 13.25 Cr), but he has mostly had trouble adapting. He scored 100* in one game and a total of 63 in 8 others. Aiden Markram, on the other hand, seemed to indicate on Saturday that he will be kept on. Even though there are only four points between the top team (Gujarat Titans) and the seventh team (Punjab Kings), SRH are still a few steps behind the other teams in the race to finish in the top four.
When: May 7, 2023, at 7.30 p.m. IST, Rajasthan Royals will play Sunrisers Hyderabad.
Where: Sawai Mansingh stadium, Jaipur
What to look for: Another long-term project? On Sunday, the same field that made it hard for RR to score runs against GT will be used.
In 17 games against each other, RR has won 9 and SRH has won 8. RR has won two of the three games played at the venue.
Team Look
Rajasthan Royals
No injuries or absences were reported after the Friday game.
Trent Boult has always made an impact early in the PowerPlay, but Sandeep Sharma will also be important against SRH because he matches up well with their starter Mayank Agarwal (47 runs in 44 balls; 3 dismissals). Mayank is also a tough matchup for Chahal because he has hit 72 runs off of 49 balls from the leggie. Chahal has gotten him out of jail six times.
Jos Buttler, Yashasvi Jaiswal, Devdutt Padikkal, Sanju Samson, Shimron Hetmyer, Dhruv Jurel, Adam Zampa, R Ashwin, Yuzvendra Chahal, Trent Boult, and Sandeep Sharma are likely to be in the XI.
In the last game, when RR’s batting innings fell apart after Sanju Samson set a goal, they turned to Riyan Parag as a last-minute replacement. Even if they end up in the same situation again, they will have to change their plan because Parag has had trouble getting runs all season.
Sunrisers Hyderabad
No reports of injuries or lack of supply
Strategy and pairings: SRH will hope that Bhuvneshwar Kumar’s years of experience will help him make Jos Buttler’s battle last longer. In the IPL, Bhuvneshwar has let the England batter score 45 runs at a rate of one run per ball without getting him out. In all T20s, he has given away 88 out of 82 runs and been out of the game five times.
Probable XI: Abhishek Sharma, Mayank Agarwal, Rahul Tripathi, Aiden Markram, Harry Brook, Heinrich Klaasen, Abdul Samad, Marco Jansen/Akeal Hossein, Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Mayank Markande, Kartik Tyagi
Depending on who wins the toss, either Rahul Tripathi or T Natarajan will likely be the impact replacement.
How they put it:
“In games like these, both teams usually play pretty bad. We’ve had one now, which is bad because the tournament is almost over. If you take this game out of the picture, we’re still a very good team that plays very good cricket. We have to face the fact that we played very badly against GT. The first step is to realize and accept the problem. The next step is to try to figure out how to fix it. We know what was going on. Training without any thought is not the way. It’s just a matter of making sure the guys are committed to playing harder and smarter in the next game and committing to the level of cricket we play.” – Kumar Sangakkara on RR’s crushing loss to GT on Friday.
“I think the answer is pretty clear for us now. We haven’t done the math yet, but we think that every game we play is a must-win, so the guys are excited about that. It’s not the best place for the team to be, but we can’t change what’s already happened. We’re looking forward to five games.” – Aiden Markram, captain of SRH
Did you know that:
– In 18 games against SRH, Yuzvendra Chahal has taken 24 wickets, with a best of 4 for 17.
Heinrich Klaasen has been SRH’s best batter against spin, scoring 93 runs off 53 balls at a strike rate of 175.47 and getting out only once.
