Sunrisers Hyderabad vs Gujarat Lions
Transfers made – 2; Transfers remaining – 69
Tymal Mills out – Rashid Khan in
Thangarasu Natarajan out – Shikhar Dhawan in
(uncapped) Aditya Tare out – Deepak Hooda in
Captain – David Warner
With Mustafizur Rahman still not available for selection, the Sunrisers Hyderabad have absolutely no reason to change their playing XI. The debatable picks – Moises Henriques, Ben Cutting, and Rashid Khan – all did more than enough to justify their spot. The Lions, on the other hand, showed why I said they are a bottom 4 team this year. The best they could do is drop one of their overseas bats – most likely, James Roy – for James Faulkner/Andrew Tye, which is not going to have much of an impact, either.
As mentioned in the previous Lions’ article, their overseas bats are extremely vulnerable to quality spin bowling, which was proved by Kuldeep Yadav at Rajkot. It could have been worse had they held on to one of the many chances that Raina offered and Sunil Narine been his usual self.
Sunrisers have an equally capable bowling attack to exploit this weakness. If Rashid Khan gets his length right today, the game could be over very soon for the Suresh Raina-led side. Bhuvneshwar Kumar’s new ball skill will be a threat, too. Add Ashish Nehra, Bipul Sharma, Moises Henriques and Ben Cutting to it, you will have as good a support cast as you can ask for.
Fantasy Factors:
Shikhar Dhawan, Moises Henriques and Yuvraj Singh – all looked in good touch in the match against RCB, but you can’t bring them all, can you? Henriques is a no-brainer if he is one of the five main bowling options, but by the looks of it, he clearly isn’t.
With Rohit Sharma struggling for form, Robin Uthappa’s demotion, Ambati Rayudu’s injury and the unavailability of Indian batsmen like Murali Vijay and Virat Kohli, Dhawan and Yuvraj come back into contention. Between the two, Dhawan is both cheaper and bats higher up the order, so I have decided to go with him. This match, in particular, could give massive returns, given how badly the Lions bowled against KKR.
Rashid Khan’s leg-spin could be too much to handle for the Lions, and therefore I bring him in as well. The only Lions’ player who is worth picking is Suresh Raina, but I can’t carry him to his next game and he wasn’t exactly at ease against the Knight Riders either.
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