IPL 2018: Match 36, Sunrisers Hyderabad vs Delhi Daredevils – Expectation vs Reality

The group stage of the Indian Premier League (IPL) is approaching its last leg and all teams are beginning to look determined to extract victories left, right and centre. Come Saturday, the evening match will find the Sunrisers Hyderabad (SRH) and the Delhi Daredevils (DD) take on each other. The match will be held in Hyderabad, the third-last home game for the side.

The goals for the two sides will be completely different in this game. While SRH will be looking to seal their spot for the playoffs at the earliest, DD will be fighting to keep themselves alive in the tournament. Before the real action starts, let’s take a sneak peek at what we’re expecting from this high-octane encounter while we wait for the reality to unfold.

The young trio of Delhi Daredevils firing away

Delhi Daredevils have unleashed a goldmine in the form of raw, young talent. With the advent of players like Shreyas Iyer, Prithvi Shaw and Rishabh Pant, who’ve been shouldering the onus on DD’s batting for the last few matches, Delhi have been nurturing a new-found hope to qualify for the playoffs. Ever since taking up the captaincy reins, Iyer has been hitting runs consistently and has climbed up the ladder to claim a spot in the top 10 highest run scorers (307 runs in 9 matches).

Shaw (140 runs in 4 matches) and Pant (375 runs in 9 matches) have been equally impressive with the bat, their last performances against the Rajasthan Royals speaking volumes about their capabilities. Since DD are stuck at a do-or-die situation to qualify for the next stage, we can expect this young trio to come out onto the field, firing away from the get-go.

Siddharth Kaul increasing his wicket tally

The 27-year-old pacer has been having a dream run in the ongoing season of the IPL. With 11 scalps in 8 matches, Kaul has been consistently providing SRH with crucial breakthroughs. What SRH will look to do is to extract the maximum batting from their skipper, Kane Williamson as he seems to be in the touch of his life, irrespective of which innings they bat in.

We can expect Kaul, along with young Basil Thampi, to execute the pace duties for the team. Since DD are bound to be under considerable pressure to win the match, they’ll be prone to making errors if they don’t keep a cool head. Kaul-Thampi can look to exploit this weakness and bowl to the best of their abilities to bring in another 2 points against their name.

Here’s the reality right after the match..

Make way for Prithvi Shaw

The decision of batting first after winning the toss was a smart one from the visitors. They had read the pitch perfectly and their opener Prithvi Shaw batted beautifully in the powerplay overs. He blasted all the bowlers, especially Siddarth Kaul, out of the park and scored 65 runs off just 36 balls. He smashed 6 fours and 3 sixes during his stay in the middle. But some brilliant bowling at the backend of the innings from SRH helped them restrict Delhi to a total of 163 runs which looked competitive as well with a slow pitch on offer.

Yusuf  – The Hero

Sunrisers calculated the chase perfectly in the end, but they needed the heroics from their finisher Yusuf Pathan. he came in when they needed 32 off 17 deliveries and scored 27 of those alone by taking on the bowlers likes Trent Boult and Daniel Christain who are known to be the best in the business. A special effort from him helped the hosts climb to the top of the table again. Alex Hales also made a crucial contribution at the top which made them believe that they can gun down the total.