Sunrisers Hyderabad, who are almost out of the reckoning for a play-off berth, will take on a beleaguered Punjab Kings in an Indian Premier League (IPL) 2021 match at the Sharjah Cricket Stadium, on Saturday. Starting their campaign, on Wednesday, the Hyderabad-based franchise fell to their 7th defeat after being blown away by Delhi Capitals.
As for Punjab Kings, they famously lost a thriller against Rajasthan Royals and will be looking to seek an answer to their problems as they are placed 7th with six points from nine matches.
In the last match, the Kings were well-placed to win their first IPL game of the UAE leg. However, they were kept at bay by Kartik Tyagi. They lost two wickets and scored just one run while needing four to win against Rajasthan.
PBKS, who are packed with Indian and foreign talent, have regularly failed to consolidate and captain KL Rahul will have to address their inconsistency.
In the last 14 seasons, Punjab Kings have shown no stability as they have seen a constant change of reins in their captaincy and coaching department. Their playing XI, too, has gone through many changes, something which has drawn sharp criticism from former team mentor Virender Sehwag.
For Sunrisers, it will be about enjoying the remaining few matches and ending the tournament with a win. Having missed the services of Johnny Bairstow and with opener David Warner in poor form, SRH failed to get momentum going against Dehli.
The likes of Kane Williamson, Manish Pandey, Wriddhiman Saha, Kedar Jadhav, Abdul Samad also failed to capitalise.
Their bowling department, too, has to perform strongly for them.
Squads (from):
Punjab Kings: KL Rahul (captain), Mayank Agarwal, Arshdeep Singh, Ishan Porel, Shahrukh Khan, Mohammed Shami, Nathan Ellis, Adil Rashid, Murugan Ashwin, Harpreet Brar, Moises Henriques, Chris Jordan, Aiden Markram, Mandeep Singh, Darsan Nalkande, Prabhsimran Singh, Ravi Bishnoi, Utkarsh Singh, Fabian Allen, Saurabh Kumar, Jalaj Saxena.
Sunrisers Hyderabad:
Kane Williamson (Captain), David Warner, Manish Pandey, Sherfane Rutherford, Wriddhiman Saha, Shreevats Goswami, Rashid Khan, Vijay Shankar, Mohammad Nabi, Abhishek Sharma, Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Siddharth Kaul, Khaleel Ahmed, T Natarajan, Basil Thampi, Sandeep Sharma, Shahbaz Nadeem, Abdul Samad, J Suchith, Jason Holder, Virat Singh, Priyam Garg, Kedar Jadhav, Mujeeb-ur-Rahman, Jason Roy.
March Starts: 7:30 pm.