IPL: Sunrisers Hyderabad vs Chennai Super Kings, 18th Match – Live Cricket Score, Commentary

Chennai Super Kings and Sunrisers Hyderabad are starting to look like two peas of the same batting pod. Words like intent, freedom and aggression are reverberating in the SRH dressing room too, as the face-lift after last year’s 10th-place finish starts to take shape under Pat Cummins. Bare in mind, their opponents for Friday are a year senior in this gambit. They aced the long-batting order and hit through phases on their way to a fifth IPL title in 2023, and seem to have upskilled further with respect to this explosive batting intent.

The narrative, for both these sides, is rather delicious. They are after all, two teams that built championship-winning sides on the shoulders of their bowlers. CSK squads always knew how to maximise Chepauk’s slow conditions and SRH – in 2016 – defended considerably low totals on their way to glory. They’ve then gone on to embrace this batting chaos with the arrival of the impact substitute, and promise a You-Blink-I-Smash contest on Friday. Or do they?

Both the teams arrived in Hyderabad looking for the hitting comforts of the venue, but will have to contend with a black soil pitch that could bring spinners into play and push the pacers to annoy some of the cleanest hitters of the ball with cutters and slow bouncers that will grip. Daniel Vettori reckoned he was still ‘gearing up for another 200’ game but Michael Hussey didn’t commit to the idea of a high-scorer. He rather hoped his team read conditions quicker, and put the onus on the openers to figure out and pass on the information.

When: Sunrisers Hyderabad vs Chennai Super Kings, IPL 2024, April 5, 19:30 IST

Where: Rajiv Gandhi International Stadium, Hyderabad

What to expect: Uncertainty. The venue produced a 277-v-246 game just eight days ago, and CSK and SRH have hit half the 200-plus totals so far (CSK 1, SRH 2). But a black soil pitch means hitting through the line will not be as easy.

Head to Head: CSK 14 – 5 SRH. This is the most one-sided duel, with CSK’s win percentage of 73.68% being the best for a team against a single opponent (criteria: > 10 matches).

Team Watch

Sunrisers Hyderabad

Injury/Availability:Wanindu Hasaranga remains an absentee. Rest of the squad is available for selection.

Tactics & Matchups: Ruturaj Gaikwad has fallen to left-arm pace in all of CSK’s games so far. SRH might find it hard to fit Marco Jansen into the XI, but will perhaps rely on Jaydev Unadkat to keep the trend going. The veteran left-armer has 13 wickets in 22 overs at the venue.

Probable XI: Mayank Agarwal, Travis Head, Abhishek Sharma, Aiden Markram, Heinrich Klaasen, Abdul Samad, Shahbaz Ahmed, Pat Cummins, Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Mayank Markande, Jaydev Unadkat [Impact Sub: Washington Sundar/Umran Malik]

Chennai Super Kings

Injury/Availability: Mustafizur Rahman is in the US to process his visa for the T20 World Cup that comes right after the IPL in June and will be unavailable for the SRH game.

Tactics & Matchups: CSK have a decision on their hands. A slow surface could pave the way for Maheesh Theekshana’s return but SRH have multiple spin hitters. Klaasen has smashed their ilk at a strike rate of 200 since IPL 2022, while Abhishek Sharma has hit them at 167.50 in the same period – bettered only by Klaasen and Glenn Maxwell (173.89).

If the anticipation is of a batting belter, CSK could replace Mustafizur with Shardul Thakur, who they bought back in the recent auction but haven’t fielded in their XII yet. Besides further lengthening CSK’s batting, Thakur also brings a favourable match-up against Abhishek Sharma, who smashed 63 off 23 in the last game at this venue. In the 14 balls bowled to top-order batter from Punjab, Thakur has given away just 16 runs and dismissed him twice. Shardul has also dismissed Klaasen twice in 11 deliveries in IPL.

Probable XI: Rachin Ravindra, Ruturaj Gaikwad, Ajinkya Rahane, Shivam Dube, Daryl Mitchell, Sameer Rizvi, Ravindra Jadeja, MS Dhoni, Deepak Chahar, Tushar Deshpande, Matheesha Pathirana/Shardul Thakur [Impact Sub: Maheesh Theekshana/Matheesha Pathirana]