Mumbai Indians has already ended the IPL 2022 playoff hopes of Chennai Super Kings and in its path next, at the Wankhede Stadium on Tuesday, is Sunrisers Hyderabad.
The loss against Kolkata Knight Riders has dented SRH’s hopes of reaching the last four. But, it could still sneak through with 14 points. However, its poor NRR of -0.270 makes qualification an uphill task.
Batting woes
As a barometer of the Sunrisers Hyderabad team, Kane Williamson is pretty accurate. His batting woes mirror SRH’s.
In IPL-15, SRH has the worst PowerPlay run-rate (6.80). Williamson has scored 208 runs at a strike rate of 92.85 this season but Sunrisers continue to persist with him as opener.
Although SRH has the second-best run rate (8.58) between overs seven and 16, Williamson’s PowerPlay strike rate of 76.38 is leaving the middle-order batters with too much work to do. The team could possibly think of asking Rahul Tripathi to open.
In the bowling department, the return of T. Natarajan and Washington Sundar is good news although they went for a combined 83 runs in eight overs and took just one wicket against Kolkata Knight Riders.
The Mumbai side, too, has had to contend with top-order issues, but the emergence of Tilak Varma — 368 runs in 12 innings — has been a silver lining. Tilak, along with Hrithik Shokeen, put MI on course for victory against CSK with a mature 48-run stand.
Jasprit Bumrah enjoys bowling at the Wankhede, where he has 37 wickets in 34 IPL matches at an economy rate of 7.72. His battle with the SRH top-order could be decisive.
Match at 7.30 p.m.
