The tenth edition of the Indian Premier League [IPL] is upon us and the opening match promises to be a cracker, featuring the two teams from last year’s final; Sunrisers Hyderabad [SRH] and Royal Challengers Bangalore [RCB].
SRH went into the 2016 final as underdogs, having to face a team in RCB who not only had an all-star batting line-up but also home advantage.
David Warner’s side were not fazed by the occasion, though, going on to win the title in impressive fashion.
Coming into the 2017 season, both franchises will be expected to be among the top contenders for the trophy once again and their journey towards the coveted crown will begin at the Rajiv Gandhi International Cricket Stadium in Hyderabad on Wednesday.
DATE, TIME, VENUE INFO
Date: April 5, 2017 (Wednesday)
Time: 18:30 GST, 20:00 local time (IST), 14:30 GMT
Venue: Rajiv Gandhi International Cricket Stadium, Hyderabad
WHERE TO WATCH, LIVE STREAMING INFO
TV: UAE – OSN Sports Cricket HD, India – Sony Six, Sony Six HD (English), Sony Max, Sony Max HD 3 (Hindi), UK – Sky Sports
Online streaming: hotstar.com, Hotstar app (in India only)
LIVE blog: Sport360 blog
TEAM NEWS, SQUAD, PREDICTED XI
SRH SQUAD: David Warner (c), Shikhar Dhawan, Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Moises Henriques, Mustafizur Rahman, Naman Ojha, Deepak Hooda, Ricky Bhui, Kane Williamson, Siddarth Kaul, Bipul Sharma, Ashish Nehra, Yuvraj Singh, Ben Cutting, Barinder Sran, Abhimanyu Mithun, Vijay Shankar, Tanmay Agarwal, Mohammad Nabi, Ekalavya Dwivedi, Rashid Khan, Pravin Tambe, Chris Jordan, Ben Laughlin, Mohammed Siraj.
Coming into IPL 2017, the Hyderabad-based franchise have a solid-looking squad. Their batting was a bit of a concern last season, especially their middle-order, but expect more from the likes of Yuvraj Singh and Deepak Hooda this time around.
As it’s the first match of the season, it’s a little difficult to predict the eleven as the preferred combinations of the teams are mostly unknown.
Bangladesh pacer Mustafizur Rahman will miss this game as he is with the Bangladesh team who are facing Sri Lanka in a limited-overs series.
The four SRH foreign players that will take the field on Wednesday is perhaps the toughest to guess. While captain Warner is a certainty, the other three slots see seven players with equally good claims to make it their own.
The all-round abilities of Moises Henriques and Ben Cutting might work in their favour, while at least one spot is likely to be taken by one of the two Afghanistan stars – Mohammad Nabi or Rashid Khan.
PREDICTED SRH XI: Warner (c), Dhawan, Henriques, Yuvraj, Ojha (wk), Hooda, Cutting, Rashid, Bhuvneshwar, Sran, Nehra.
RCB SQUAD: Virat Kohli (c), Chris Gayle, AB de Villiers, Shane Watson, Yuzvendra Chahal, Harshal Patel, Mandeep Singh, Adam Milne, Sarfaraz Khan, Sreenath Aravind, Kedar Jadhav, Stuart Binny, Samuel Badree, Travis Head, Sachin Baby, Iqbal Abdullah, Avesh Khan, Tabraiz Shamsi, Pawan Negi, Tymal Mills, Aniket Choudhary, Praveen Dubey, Billy Stanlake.
RCB were considered by many as the pre-tournament favourites, but injury-after-injury has seen them lose some of their key players for either some part of the tournament or the entire event itself.
Captain Virat Kohli will miss the first few matches due to a shoulder injury, while AB de Villiers has been ruled out of the first match because of a back problem. This means that Australian all-rounder Shane Watson will lead the side in Hyderabad.
While India international KL Rahul has been ruled out for the entire season, talented youngster Sarfaraz Khan is also likely to be unavailable after suffering an injury during a practice match.
Travis Head is likely to feature instead of De Villiers in the line-up while we might see Pawan Negi, Iqbal Abdulla, Sreenath Aravind and Aniket Choudhary battling it out for two spots in the team.
PREDICTED RCB XI: Gayle, Watson (c), Mandeep, Head, Jadhav, Baby, Binny, Negi, Aravind, Chahal, Mills.
FORM
(Last five matches – with latest match first)
SRH: W W W L L
RCB: L W W W W
MATCH PREDICTION
SRH to win.
