Royals have given up a 200-plus total just once, while Sunrisers have set and reset IPL records all season
Royals are one of two teams to average under 30 in the powerplay  •  BCCI
Match details
Sunrisers Hyderabad (fifth) vs Rajasthan Royals (first)
Hyderabad, 1930 IST (1400 GMT)
Big picture – Best bowling team vs best batting team
Rajasthan Royals have given up only one 200-plus total in a season where such totals are being scored every other day. Sunrisers Hyderabad have set and then reset the record for the highest total in IPL history. This contest between the best bowling side of the IPL and the best batting side has been a long time coming.
With Trent Boult and his penchant for first over wickets, Royals are one of two teams to average under 30 in the powerplay (the other is Gujarat Titans). They’re also allowing runs at a mere 8 an over. Could they keep that up when they face up to Abhishek Sharma, Travis Head and Heinrich Klaasen at a ground where six-hitting has been so common there’s been one every two overs? (11.1 per innings in IPL 2024)
Form guide
Sunrisers Hyderabad LLWWW (last five matches, most recent first)
Rajasthan Royals WWWWL
Team news and impact player strategy
Sunrisers Hyderabad
Sunrisers might consider bringing back their legspinner Mayank Markande in place of fingerspinner Shahbaz Ahmed. They might use them both given the many right-hand batters in the Royals line-up, but this year, spinners (8.3 balls per six) have been easier to hit out of the park in Hyderabad than the quicks (11.9). Also, Sanju Samson is the best spin six-hitter (39) since IPL 2022. Jos Buttler (31) is fourth on the list. T Natarajan is likely to continue as Impact Player, subbing in and out for a batter, like Anmolpreet Singh.
Probable XII: 1 Travis Head, 2 Abhishek Sharma, 3 Aiden Markram, 4 Heinrich Klaasen (wk), 5 Nitish Kumar Reddy, 6 Abdul Samad, 7 Pat Cummins (capt), 8 Mayank Markande/Shahbaz Ahmed, 9 Bhuvneshwar Kumar, 10 Jaydev Unadkat, 11 T Natarajan, 12 Anmolpreet Singh
Rajasthan Royals
The strength that they have in the bowling does come at the cost of batting depth. It only goes down till No. 7, with R Ashwin as the floater in the line-up, lengthening it when needed. Fortunately, their openers alone are capable of playing the whole 20 overs and with Samson and Riyan Parag also in form, they haven’t really needed lower-order support. Yuzvendra Chahal is their usual Impact Sub.
Probable XII: 1 Yashasvi Jaiswal, 2 Jos Buttler, 3 Sanju Samson (capt & wk), 4 Riyan Parag, 5 Dhruv Jurel, 6 Shimron Hetmyer, 7 Rovman Powell, 8 R Ashwin, 9 Trent Boult, 10 Avesh Khan, 11 Sandeep Sharma, 12 Yuzvendra Chahal
In the spotlight – Bhuvneshwar Kumar and Shimron Hetmyer
Bhuvneshwar Kumar was in the India squad for the last T20 World Cup. That was when Jasprit Bumrah was unavailable and the team was looking for specialists with the experience of having been there and done that. Now, he’s slipped way down the ladder, and even at his franchise team he’s not having a whole lot of luck. Bhuvneshwar has an economy rate of 10.18 and an average of 67.2. But he might still be crucial for Sunrisers on Thursday because he has a good head-to-head against Buttler: six dismissals in 91 balls for only 104 runs.
Shimron Hetmyer has faced only 36 balls all season. That’s actually a sign of things going right for the Royals. Three of his team-mates above him have scored more than 300 runs which means he’s had less of an opportunity to get out there and make an impact. That doesn’t mean he’s been lacking. Hetmyer has 70 runs in those 36 balls with five fours and five sixes. He’s an ace finisher.
Stats that matter
- A measure of the way Samson has matured is how he is pacing his innings. Earlier it seemed like he would get in a rut and then play a big shot to get out of it and it wouldn’t work. For example, in IPL 2022, he was dismissed nine times between overs 7 to 10. In IPL 2024, he is yet to be dismissed in this period while scoring at a strike rate of 139. A part of this might be the improvement in his play against spin. In IPL 2022, 36% of the balls he faced against them became dots. In IPL 2024, that figure is down at 19%.
- Chahal has a great record against SRH with 28 wickets in 19 innings and an average of 18.9, his second lowest for an IPL side behind funnily enough his current team. It is therefore crucial that SRH find a way to unleash Heinrich Klaasen upon him. Their T20 head-to-head reads 93 runs, 41 balls and three dismissals.
- Head and Abhishek have been an excellent combo for Sunrisers, one a pace-hitter, the other a spin-hitter. Their complementing each other might come in handy in this contest as well because Head has good T20 history with Boult (36 runs in 17 balls) and Abhishek doesn’t (11 runs in 18 balls with one dismissal)
- The investment both franchises have made in their youth is paying off. Royals have developed Yashasvi Jaiswal and Parag into IPL stars. Both batters are striking at over 154, with Parag already scoring more runs this year than he had in the previous two combined. SRH invested INR 6.5 crore to acquire Abhishek in the 2022 auction and he’s grown into a high-impact top-order player, hitting more sixes than fours this season.
Pitch and conditions
The average first innings total in Hyderabad in IPL 2024 is 216. Tells you all you need to know.
Quotes
“We’re very proud of the players who’ve made it. They’ve worked really hard. It’s been tough for all the players who were there and thereabouts and until the final announcement was made, I can understand how their minds would have been but I think a lot of credit should also be given to those players. They tried their best to shut out all of that and try and play the IPL and that’s worked for them and also the way they’ve played and the way they’ve adapted has worked for them so I think its a great lesson for all of us that when you settle down into something and you commit to tit, the results are more often than not positive.” Rajasthan Royals’ Kumar Sangakkara is all praise for the six players in his squad who will be representing their countries at the 2024 T20 World Cup
Alagappan Muthu is a sub-editor at ESPNcricinfo
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