The Indian Premier League is back in Hyderabad for the one match taking place on Sunday for the clash between the pre-season favourites for the IPL 2025 title Sunrisers Hyderabad and the former champions Gujarat Titans.
Hyderabad have started out like anything but title favourites this term and will know they need to turn the tide soon with the halfway point of the IPL 2025 season approaching. Gujarat have made a positive start and will be looking to build on that here.
Sunrisers Hyderabad
The season didn’t start off too badly for the Sunrisers Hyderabad but the longer it has gone on the worse they have looked and the need a bit of a reset going into this match. It is all well and good wanting the approach of hitting everything out of the park but the best teams are adaptable in their outlook and when things aren’t going to plan they can come out of that and give themselves the best chance of winning. Sunrisers haven’t shown that adaptability yet and that needs to change if they want to live up to the pre-tournament billing.
One of the problems that the Sunrisers have is their bowling attack looks much weaker than the rest of the competition and as such they believe the onus is on their batters to get themselves out of the mess. That leads to them going incredibly hard which is fine when it comes off, in that scenario they will win many more matches than they lose, as we saw in the opening game, however when it doesn’t it leaves them open to coming up a long way short and we saw that in the most recent game. A balance needs to be found.
Gujarat Titans
Even allowing for the fact that a team would always want more, the Gujarat Titans should be very happy with their start to the campaign and a win here would leave them very handy as we approach the halfway point in the season over the next week or so. They have played a game fewer than the Sunrisers and already have two points more and a significant net run rate advantage so they are going along much the better of the two. They will join the Delhi Capitals on three wins should they come out on top here.
The Titans could easily already have three wins but they just found the Punjab Kings just slightly too good for them with the bat in the opening game. Since then they have controlled both of their matches and will be looking to do the same here, although it goes without saying that they are going to need to deliver something close to their best with the ball if they are going to get the job done. It would be a surprise if they don’t dominate with the bat though which is one good thing.
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Key Players
Since that opening game, Ishan Kishan has had three innings and scored a total of four runs. Batting at number three in a team who are intent on blasting away throughout the innings they really need him to start firing to get them to the required totals.
Jos Buttler is really starting to move through the gears for the Gujarat Titans and despite all the calls for him to be opening the batting he is firing nicely at number three for them and could really get stuck into a poor bowling attack here.
Betting
I think it is right to assume that this one is going to be a high scoring game. We should acknowledge that the Sunrisers Hyderabad are struggling with their top three at the minute but the big news here is that Kagiso Rabada has flown home for personal reasons so that should open up the chance for those players to find a bit of form and if they lay the foundations then big things could come but I would still like to see a slightly more measured or balanced approach from the Sunrisers before I truly trust them to deliver very high scoring games again.
I do think that Gujarat Titans will score big though and if they only have a moderate target to chase, and they have conceded 160 in all three matches so far and I don’t see them conceding less than that on a road of a pitch with no Rabada, then we know that they will go after the run chase and look to sort out their net run rate. With Rabada absent they do have the option of bringing Glenn Phillips into the side to bowl off spin at the Sunrisers top three who are all left-handed and that would strengthen the batting but a top four guaranteed of Sai Subharsan, Shubman Gill, Jos Buttler and Sherfane Rutherford should have plenty of boundaries in them on a ground where it is four once you beat the in field. I like them to plunder over 25.5 boundaries here.
Tips
Back Gujarat Titans – Over 25.5 boundaries for a 3/10 stake at 1.83 with Bet365
