JOIN US Defending champions Sunrisers Hyderabad will start favourites when they take on the struggling Kings XI Punjab in an Indian Premier League match here on Friday.
The David Warner-led Hyderabad have won four out of eight games so far and have shared the points in a rain-abandoned outing against Royal Challengers Bangalore.
The visitors are placed third with nine points and would certainly have the upper-hand against Kings XI, who have managed to win just three of their seven games.
KXIP’s Head of cricket of operations Virender Sehwag has said that all the upcoming matches are going to be crucial.
Between April 28 to May 9, KXIP will be playing four games, including against table-toppers Kolkata Knight Riders here.
Hyderabad have clashed with Punjab at their home ground on one occasion this season in which they secured a five-run win while defending a modest total of 159 runs.
Manan Vohra’s 50-ball-95 knock did not prove sufficient for Punjab and the rest of their batting collapsed as Sunrisers’ bowling mainstay Bhuvneshwar Kumar produced a magical spell of 4-0-19-5.
KXIP will take solace in the fact that opener Hashim Amla is in good form and can take the attack to the opposition camp.
Punjab produced an all-round performance in their previous outing to finally arrest their slide, beating Gujarat Lions by 26 runs on the latter’s home-turf with Amla again playing a brilliant innings.
On the other side, Hyderabad, will look to maintain their consistency.
Openers Warner (235 from 7 games) and Shikhar Dhawan (282 from 7 games) have been scoring the bulk of the runs.
Bowling has complemented Hyderabad’s batsmen with seamer Bhuvneshwar Kumar (16 wickets) and young Afghanistan spinner Rashid Khan (10 wickets) proving their mettle.