We have a double header of action in the Indian Premier League on Sunday and in the opening leg of it the IPL 2025 season gets up and running for the finalists of a year ago in Sunrisers Hyderabad when they host the Rajasthan Royals.
These two sides are usually pretty entertaining but they will both swap that tag for winning the title and that is what each of them set out on their quest to do. Sunrisers will be wanting to show that they have put the defeat in the final last term behind them.
Sunrisers Hyderabad
The Sunrisers Hyderabad go into the new season as the favourites with the bookmakers to come out on top in the competition this term. They certainly look a more dangerous side on paper than they did last year and if that translates onto the grass then they are entitled to take some stopping. They have one of the most fearsome batting units that the IPL has ever seen and if that fires completely for 20 overs they could put up some insane scores.
I think it is fair to say that Hyderabad have traded a little bit of bowling strength for extra power with the bat but I don’t mind that so much. The Impact Player rule in this competition means if you want to be going deep in the tournament then you really need to be putting up scores of 200 or more regularly so the more big hitters a team has for longer the better their chances are. Even without an attack quite as strong as last year Pat Cummins, Adam Zampa and Mohammad Shami are top notch operators.
Rajasthan Royals
The Rajasthan Royals have recent experience of losing in the final of this competition too. They lost out in the title game in 2022 and after a year where they missed the playoffs, they were back in there last term where they finished third but they couldn’t get the job done against the Sunrisers in the Qualifier 2 match and ultimately they were watching on when the final was played. You would imagine that will be fuel to their fire to deliver a strong showing here.
Rajasthan are a team who have generally relied on their batters to deliver the goods for them but that has largely because they haven’t had much in the way of luck with their bowlers. Jofra Archer hasn’t really been fully fit for a while for them but he is around for this season and that could make a key difference, as could the arrival of Wanindu Hasaranga, even if the latter has come at the expense of losing Adam Zampa, another bowler on the Royals roster who wasn’t much help to them when he pulled out of the event last term.
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Key Players
All eyes will be on Travis Head in this match to see if he can have the sort of impact on this Sunrisers Hyderabad side that he had on it last season. If he can then the home side are going to be a fearsome prospect in this match.
Jofra Archer was arguably the best white ball bowler in the world prior to his injury hell but having come out of that now he will be looking to get back to that lofty position and if he can take some new ball wickets it will help to contain the Hyderabad batting.
Betting
If there is an area where the Rajasthan Royals might be found wanting in the early part of this season it is with the new ball where the quality of Trent Boult bowling half of the overs in the powerplay economically are a thing of the past as he has left to join the Mumbai Indians. They do have Fazalhaq Farooqi but there is no guarantee that he can get his way into the side and even if he does he’ll have his work cut out containing this Sunrisers Hyderabad top order.
Sunrisers have a powerplay batting runs line of 58.5 which on this ground isn’t asking too much especially when you consider that they have a powerful and deep batting unit and that the strike rate of their two openers last season was 204.21 and 191.55. Let’s call that two a ball between them and that gets us to 72 if they bat out the powerplay and against an attack which has a couple of question marks hanging over it I expect the Hyderabad side to clear 58.5 runs before the sixth over ends.
Tips
Back Sunrisers Hyderabad First 6 Overs – Over 58.5 runs for a 3/10 stake at 1.85 with Betway
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