After narrowly failing in their first attempt to make the Indian Premier League final on Tuesday, the Gujarat Lions get their second chance on Friday when they take on the Sunrisers Hyderabad in the second qualifier of the playoffs.
The Sunrisers built up some momentum with their win over Kolkata in a do or die match on Wednesday and with both sides having enjoyed lengthy periods at the top of the table we know there will be no lack of quality on show.
Gujarat Lions
You get the feeling that the Lions have been hanging on over the last few weeks. They initially blazed the early trail in the league table but then had a wobble only to come good again but then they ran into an AB de Villiers at his best in the opening playoff match on Tuesday.
Aaron Finch has been moved up to the top of the order with Dwayne Smith coming in lower down. You would have to say that is a move that hasn’t worked right at the start of the innings but Dwayne Smith showed all of his quality in the previous match which is something encouraging at least.
Sunrisers Hyderabad
The Sunrisers had seen themselves knocked off top spot into third in the table in the last week of the regular season but they didn’t let that worry them when they took care of the Kolkata Knight Riders on Wednesday. Having experienced the pressure of knockout cricket already they could have a bit of an advantage.
Maybe the most encouraging thing to come out of the knockout game was the form of Yuvraj Singh. You get the feeling if the Sunrisers are to win the tournament they are going to need him to come to the party again before the season is finished.
Team news
Shadab Jakati got some serious pasting in the previous match and with the Sunrisers having plenty of left handers in their side he might pay the price for that. Gujarat have Pravin Tambe and Shivil Kaushik on the sidelines waiting to come in.
Unless they want to swap spinners you would think that the Sunrisers will be largely unchanged here. They batted fairly well in the previous match and the line up of their seamers is always reliable.
Form
Gujarat Lions: WWWLWWWLLLWLWWL
Sunrisers Hyderabad: LLWWWLWWWWLWLLW
Head to head: Gujarat Lions 0-2 Sunrisers Hyderabad
In Delhi: First meeting
Feroz Shah Kotla
The wicket on Wednesday played a little sluggish which played right into the hands of the Sunrisers’ bowling with their cutters and changes of pace working a treat and it would be folly to expect anything different from the pitch in this game.
That doesn’t mean that scores will necessarily be low. The boundaries here are perfectly accessible if you play good shots but with the quality of the attacks on show here it may be a lower scoring game than is perhaps ideal at this stage of a tournament.
Indian Premier League Betting
I’m often reluctant to take sides who have done the double over their opponents in the regular season because it rarely works out that you beat the same side three times in the one season but I’m going to make an exception on this occasion.
The reason for that is both matches previously had the same trend about them in that the Lions’ batting just couldn’t cope with the Sunrisers’ attack. In the two regular season matches Gujarat managed just 135/8 and 126/6 against this bowling attack and both totals were chased down with immaculate ease.
You would think that is only likely to continue on this particular deck which can be sluggish and sticky which the style of the Sunrisers’ attack is perfectly suited to. Both sides are similar in their the bulk of their runs have come from the top but if this does become a death bowling battle you’d back Mustafizur and co over anyone in the tournament so the Sunrisers Hyderabad have to be the bet here.
Tips
WON – Back Sunrisers Hyderabad to beat Gujarat Lions for a 4/10 stake at 2.00 with Winner Sports
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