IPL 2021 Match 28: Floundering sides Rajasthan and Hyderabad in face-off

Tags: Indian T20 League 2021, Rajasthan XI vs Hyderabad XI, 28th Match at Delhi, May 02, 2021, Rajasthan XI, Hyderabad XI

Published on: May 02, 2021

Scorecard | Commentary | Graphs

Bottom-placed sides Rajasthan Royals (RR) and Sunrisers Hyderabad (SRH), under a new leader, will meet in match 28 of IPL 2021 at the Arun Jaitley Stadium in New Delhi. While RR are placed at number seven in the points table, with two wins and four losses, SRH are last, having won only one of their six matches so far.

In their last encounter, RR were trounced by Mumbai Indians (MI) by seven wickets. Batting first, they posted 171 on the board. However, MI were able to chase down the total without much fuss. SRH suffered yet another disappointing loss in their last match, going down to CSK by seven wickets. Both teams would thus be desperate for a win.

RR were disappointing with both the bat and the ball against MI. For a change, they got a good start as their openers Jos Buttler and Yashasvi Jaiswal added 66 for the first wicket in decent time. But, neither of them could carry on to make a big score. Buttler fell for 41 and Jaiswal for 32. The story carried on in the middle-order as skipper Sanju Samson fell for 42 and Shivam Dube contributed 35.

Despite having a decent score to defend, RR bowlers could not make any impact on the MI batters. Chris Morris claimed two wickets and was the best of the bowlers. Mustafizur Rahman picked up one but by this time the game was well out of RR’s grasp. Chetan Sakariya, Jaydev Unadkat and Rahul Tewatia all bowled their overs without claiming a wicket, which would worry RR a bit.

SRH also did not find too much joy against CSK. The news coming in is that the franchise has replaced David Warner as skipper with Kane Williamson. It remains to be seen how much the change in leadership helps SRH. The franchise release also revealed that they will have a re-look at the overseas combination.

As of now, David Warner, Jonny Bairstow, Kane Williamson and Rashid Khan are their four foreign players regularly featuring in the playing XI. It would be interesting to see what kind of changes they make in the final team. More than the overseas players, it is the weak middle-order that is hurting SRH. In fact, they are actually overdependent on their overseas players.

Predicted XIs

RR: Jos Buttler, Yashasvi Jaiswal, Sanju Samson (C & WK), Shivam Dube, Riyan Parag, David Miller, Chris Morris, Rahul Tewatia, Shreyas Gopal, Mustafizur Rahman, Chetan Sakariya

SRH: David Warner, Jonny Bairstow (WK), Manish Pandey, Kane Williamson (C), Vijay Shankar, Kedar Jadhav, Rashid Khan, Jagadeesh Suchith, Siddarth Kaul, Khaleel Ahmed, Sandeep Sharma

--Renin Wilben Albert

Related News