IPL 2024: Sunrisers Hyderabad looks to return to winning ways against high-flying Rajasthan Royals

Table-topper Rajasthan Royals take on fifth-placed Sunrisers Hyderabad as the home team desperately needs to regain the winning touch in the Indian Premier League (IPL 2024) match at the Rajiv Gandhi International Stadium here on Thursday.

Royals’ batting line-up consists of openers Yashasvi Jaiswal and Jos Buttler in top form, captain Sanju Samson at number three, who is always there to chip in under pressure and bolstered by his inclusion in the T20 World Cup squad, clean-hitting Riyan Parag followed by Shimron Hetmyer and Dhruv Jurel who can easily test the best of bowling attacks in any conditions

The fact that Royals lost just one game from nine so far to top the table is testimony to the all-around skills of the team which is arguably the most consistent so far even as the fear of peaking too early might lurk around.

The huge plus for Royals has been the fact that at least two players either in the bowling or batting department have been able to raise the bar and help the team cross the line.

The variety in bowling with the likes of left-arm pacer Trent Boult, Nandre Burger, vastly-improved Avesh Khan with the new ball, backed by Sandeep Sharma, and the quality spin of Ravichandran Ashwin and Yuzvendra Chahal, has been adept at the challenges so far.

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It will be interesting to watch how good the Royals’ bowlers will be against the Sunrisers’ batting unit which has clearly set the benchmark for the others in terms of a domineering display in the PowerPlay. However, the failure of Travis Head and Abhishek Sharma at the top in the last two matches proved to be costly for Sunrisers.

When they failed to get going, the others including the free-stroking South African duo of Aiden Markram and Heinrich Klaasen, and Nitish Reddy failed to come good. Surprisingly, the side has more losses in chasing targets despite the striking prowess of some of these batters.

With five wins and four losses, Sunrisers’ bowling has been pretty inconsistent except for left-arm pacer Jaydev Unadkat and death overs specialist T. Natarajan.

On a typical high-scoring wicket, it can be a feast for the cricket fans as a high-scoring contest is predicted