After a dull performance in the Chennai leg, Hyderabad will welcome Delhi-leg against in-form Chennai. Hyderabad suffered a loss in super over against Delhi, while Chennai defeated Bangalore by 69 runs.
Match Timings: April 28, 7:30 PM IST
Team Preview
Delhi leg will kick start with the clash between two former winners, Chennai and Hyderabad. Both sides had a reverse story in Indian T20 League. Warner’s troops have just one win out of five, while Dhoni’s troops lost just a single game out of five.
Hyderabad’s campaign is filled with disappointment and the Chennai leg came out as a scary part of the season. Hyderabad managed to get only two points out of five games and they are now in deep trouble. They haven’t missed out the playoffs since 2016 but this time, this record might be broken if Hyderabad carries a similar show. In previous game, Hyderabad fought with Kane Williamson and he didn’t get the support from another end. Bowling has been outstanding throughout the season but batting let them down. They were one run short by umpiring call in super-over and Rashid failed to defend it. Hyderabad has to fix its middle-order issue because they cannot rely on their top-order every time. They still have 9 games from now and they have to win at least six to crack playoffs. Manish Pandey might replace struggling Virat Singh. It’s a poor call when you have a consistent player and he is sitting on the bench. Suchith looked better with both bat and ball so Warner can replace him with Khaleel. Bhuvi should be back in this game after missing out the previous game.
Meanwhile, Chennai are highly motivated after a thumping win against Bangalore, and Jadeja’s all-around show helped them to add the fourth consecutive win of the season. His 28-ball 62 and 3 for 14 did wonder for Chennai. Plessis also got a gritty half-century and Tahir bagged two. It was a one-sided affair and Chennai would be proud of back-to-back dominating performances. Moeen Ali might be back in the side to replace Tahir. Chennai tick all the positive points and their openers got another good start which is a good sign. Middle-order is experienced and Jadeja does the rest of the job with top-finish. They have the depth in batting and bowling is also picking regular wickets. Deepak Chahar is doing magic with the new ball and spinners are controlling runs in middle-overs. Chennai had the edge over Hyderabad and they look slightly better in Delhi.
Pitch Report
Delhi’s surface is a decent T20 track. It allows good assistance to bat and ball both. Spinners will be in command in the middle of the game and we expect some swing with the new ball. It could be a good scoring game and chasing would be tricky.
Possible XI
Chennai
Ruturaj Gaikwad, Faf du Plessis, Moeen Ali, Suresh Raina, Ambati Rayudu, Ravindra Jadeja, MS Dhoni (c & wk), Sam Curran, DJ Bravo, Shardul Thakur, Deepak Chahar
Hyderabad
David Warner (c), Jonny Bairstow (wk), Kane Williamson, Manish Pandey, Vijay Shankar, Abhishek Sharma, Kedar Jadhav, Rashid Khan, Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Khaleel Ahmed, Siddarth Kaul
Key Players
Chennai
Faf du Plessis
Ravindra Jadeja
Hyderabad
Jonny Bairstow
Rashid Khan
