A resilient Punjab Kings will take on a star-studded but erratic Sunrisers Hyderabad in their Indian Premier League (IPL) clash at Mullanpur on Saturday.
PBKS must be frustrated that they shared a point with KKR in their most recent game because of the weather, given how they had begun the season.
Under the leadership of Shreyas Iyer, PBKS has come to represent what a winning team should look like, whether it is defeating past champions Gujarat Titans on a challenging Mullanpur pitch or easily chasing down a 200-plus total against Chennai Super Kings in a sea of yellow.
With Australian quick Xavier Bartlett wreaking havoc, they were on track to defeat Kolkata Knight Riders for the third time in a row at the Eden Gardens. However, heavy weather and a thunderstorm forced them to share a point with the hosts.
Cooper Connolly’s undefeated 72 against Gujarat Titans and Vijaykumar Vyshak’s increasing influence with the ball indicate PBKS’s emphasis on team success over Orange or Purple Cap aspirations, as opener-keeper Prabhsimran Singh, who just finished a season with more than 500 runs, put it.
The same cannot be true for Sunrisers Hyderabad, who, despite their reputation for high totals and aggressive batting, have struggled this season mostly as a result of top-order collapses, as demonstrated against RCB and LSG when the dangerous opening duo of Travis Head and Abhishek Sharma perished cheaply.
SRH’s problems have been exacerbated by the lack of impact from players like Jaydev Unadkat and Harshal Patel. Heinrich Klaasen and Nitish Kumar Reddy’s batting efforts were two of SRH’s few positives over LSG.
In the powerplay, spinner Harsh Dubey has displayed flashes of brilliance, and it would be expected that he would maintain his current level of performance.
Unadkat would be eager to make amends after giving up 50 runs in 23 balls in the last match. Despite having a difficult task of defending nine runs in the final over against LSG, the left-arm pacer was unable to hold the opposition.
Punjab Kings Probable XI: Priyansh Arya, Prabhsimran Singh (wk), Cooper Connolly, Shreyas Iyer (C), Nehal Wadhera, Shashank Singh, Marcus Stoinis, Marco Jansen, Arshdeep Singh, Vijaykumar Vyshak, Xavier Bartlett
Sunrisers Hyderabad Probable XI: Travis Head, Abhishek Sharma, Ishan Kishan (C), Liam Livingstone, Heinrich Klaasen, Nitish Kumar Reddy, Aniket Verma, Shivang Kumar, Eshan Malinga, Harshal Patel, Jaydev Unadkat
