The 29th match of the IPL 2020 will see the Sunrisers Hyderabad (SRH) facing off against Chennai Super Kings (CSK) in Dubai, in what commences the second half of the tournament. SRH had beaten CSK in their previous meeting on October 2nd and will look to doing the same this time as well.
SRH has lost 4 games out of the 7 they have played, while CSK has lost 5 matches, putting both teams in the lower tier of the points table. In order to come out victorious in this match, both teams need to bring in their best players and hence TEAM COC presents the Predicted Playing XIs for the SRH v CSK match.
SUNRISERS HYDERABAD (SRH)
Sunrisers Hyderabad has won 2 and lost 2 of their last four matches and need to win atleast 4 matches out of their remaining 7 in order to be in contention for the playoffs. David Warner and Jonny Bairstow have been the backbone of SRH batting with Manish Pandey and Kane Williamson providing much-needed support.
The young guns Abhishek Sharma, and Priyam Garg have done their best to bolster the scoring in the last few overs, but the absence of an experienced power-hitter in the middle has hurt them more often than not. SRH tried to sort this problem out by replacing the impressive Abdul Samad with Vijay Shankar in their last match against RR, but the conundrum continues.
Rashid Khan and T Natarajan have been amazing with the ball and have been amongst the wickets as well with 10 and 7 scalps respectively. Khaleel Ahmed has provided valuable support as well with 6 wickets, but Bhuvneshwar Kumar’s absence has hurt them the most.
They had defeated CSK in their last encounter and will take heart from it and the fact that CSK has been on a losing spree off late will bolster their confidence.
CHENNAI SUPER KINGS (CSK)
Chennai Super Kings seems to have stuck in a consistent loop of losses. They have won only one match, against Kings XI Punjab, from their last five games apart from their victory over MI in the first match of the tournament.
The age of the daddies army has started to show and somehow the magic of MS Dhoni’s captaincy is not working anymore for the yellow army and in their match against KKR, he was outdone by Karthik’s smart leadership as well.
While Watson, Du Plessis, and Curran have been their best performers so far, the fact that their premier spinner Jadeja has just 3 wickets from 7 matches is a concern for them and apart from their openers, and Rayudu, and to some extent Dhoni, none of the other batters have come to the party yet.
Deepak Chahar and Shardul Thakur have been the main wicket-takers for the team, while they inexplicably benched Ngidi after one bad match, despite taking 4 wickets in 2 games and giving them the luxury of express pace. Hazlewood was benched after one match in favor of Bravo, who has 3 wickets at an economy of 8.80.
The time has come for CSK to take some tough decisions instead of sticking to one team as they have done. There have been talks that the management is afraid to make changes, because if they work and the team starts winning, their theory of sticking to their guns, proves hollow. But time has come to make changes, good and fast.
SRH COC Predicted Playing XI:
David Warner (C), Jonny Bairstow (WK), Manish Pandey, Kane Williamson, Priyam Garg, Abhishek Sharma, Vijay Shankar, Rashid Khan, Sandeep Sharma, Khaleel Ahmed, T Natarajan
CSK COC Predicted Playing XI:
Faf du Plessis, Shane Watson, Ambati Rayudu, MS Dhoni (C&WK), N Jagadeesan, Ravindra Jadeja, Dwayne Bravo, Deepak Chahar, Karn Sharma, Shardul Thakur, Imran Tahir
