Struggling SunRisers try to turn the tide at home against high-flying Kings

Large Image: Sunrisers looking for their first win

Sunrisers Hyderabad went to Lucknow, aided by the arrival of the South African part of their contingent. They had all the plans in place: play only three foreign players when they bat first, bring in Heinrich Klaasen when they struggled with the bat or go for the great Marco Jansen in bowling. However, they were blindsided on a pitch designed to neutralize their pace attack.

Sunrisers will return to the more familiar environment of Hyderabad with two losses in two matches, and against them will face a team with two wins in two matches. Punjab Kings have won two without their full line-up with the arrival of Liam Livingstone delayed and Kagiso Rabada only just arrived.

Kings’ game seems simple: Captain Shikhar Dhawan anchors when necessary and others around him go big. There are already two all-rounders in the squad and Nathan Ellis cannot be the direct exclusion for Rabada after his five wickets in two games. Sunrisers face an exciting opponent and it will take something special to come on board on Sunday.

Team news: will Rabada play?

Livingstone is still awaiting approval from the ECB. He has not played formal cricket since he stubbed his knee on his test debut in December in Pakistan. However, apart from that, they have some good news: Bhanuka Rajapaksa broke nothing when a hit from Dhawan made him retire injured during Kings final match. Rabada is available, but will they leave Ellis out for him?

Harry Brook has not had the breath-taking start expected of him at the IPL. He has scored 16 from 25 in his two appearances but Sunrisers should back him up.

Toss and Impact Player Strategy

In Lucknow, Sunrisers named one of the rare XIs with only three foreign players ready to bring in a foreign bowler for a specialist Indian batsman. That should remain the plan if they hit first.

Probable bat-first XI: 1 Anmolpreet Singh (wk), 2 Mayank Agarwal, 3 Rahul Tripathi, 4 Aiden Markram (capt.), 5 Harry Brook, 6 Abdul Samad, 7 Washington Sundar, 8 Adil Rashid, 9 Bhuvneshwar Kumar, 10 Umran Malik, 11 T Natarajan

1 Anmolpreet Singh (wk), 2 Rahul Tripathi, 3 Aiden Markram (capt.), 4 Harry Brook, 5 Abdul Samad, 6 Washington Sundar, 7 Marco Jansen, 8 Adil Rashid, 9 Bhuvneshwar Kumar, 10 Umran Malik, 11 T Natarajan

They haven’t had to bowl first yet, but if they do, they’ll probably start with Rishi Dhawan and replace him as lead-off hitter Prabhsimran Singh.

Probable bat-first XI: 1 Prabhsimran Singh, 2 Shikhar Dhawan (capt.), 3 Bhanuka Rajapaksa, 4 Jitesh Sharma (wk), 5 Sikandar Raza, 6 Sam Curran, 7 M Shahrukh Khan, 8 Nathan Ellis, 9 Harpreet Brar, 10 Rahul Chahar, 11 Arshdeep Sinha

Probable field-first XI: 1 Prabhsimran Singh, 2 Shikhar Dhawan (capt.), 3 Jitesh Sharma (wk), 4 Sikandar Raza, 5 Sam Curran, 6 M Shahrukh Khan, 7 Harpreet Brar, 8 Rishi Dhawan, 9 Nathan Ellis, 10 Rahul Chahar, 11 Arshdeep Sinha