SunRisers Hyderabad (SRH) will be pressing the reboot button to their Indian Premier League (IPL) campaign when they take on Rajasthan Royals (RR) under new captain Kane Williamson at the Arun Jaitley Stadium here on Sunday.
SRH announced the removal of Warner from captaincy on Saturday after the Australian couldn't inspire his team to impressive performances in the first six matches of the league.
The Hyderabad franchise lies at the bottom of the points table having scored just one win. Their biggest problem has been their middle-order batting which has failed to put up big scores and has slipped up during easy chases.
Williamson himself missed the first few matches of the season but ever since he has come back into the side, he has batted well. His half-century against Delhi Capitals took the match into the power-play.
SRH have also been criticised for not fielding a balanced side and it will be interesting to see how Williamson picks his playing eleven on Sunday afternoon. Warner's comments during the tournament earlier suggested that he didn't have full authority in picking the playing eleven.
Thankfully for SRH, they will be facing RR who themselves are struggling to keep up with the race. RR are just one spot above SRH and a loss on Sunday will push them back to the bottom of the points table.
RR have only four overseas players with them after the departure of a number of them due to various reasons. They are still trying to get replacements.
Match begins at 3.30 pm.
Squads:
SunRisers Hyderabad: Kane Williamson (captain), David Warner, Abhishek Sharma, Basil Thampi, Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Jonny Bairstow (wicketkeeper), Manish Pandey, Mohammad Nabi, Rashid Khan, Sandeep Sharma, Shahbaz Nadeem, Shreevats Goswami, Siddharth Kaul, Khaleel Ahmed, Vijay Shankar, Wriddhiman Saha (wicketkeeper), Abdul Samad, Jason Roy, Jason Holder, Priyam Garg, Virat Singh, Kedar Jadhav, Mujeeb ur Rehman, J Suchith.
Rajasthan Royals: Sanju Samson (captain), Jos Buttler (wicketkeeper), Riyan Parag, Shreyas Gopal, Rahul Tewatia, Mahipal Lomror, Kartik Tyagi, Jaydev Unadkat, Mayank Markande, Yashasvi Jaiswal, Anuj Rawat, David Miller, Manan Vohra, Robin Uthappa, Shivam Dube, Chris Morris, Mustafizur Rahman, Chetan Sakariya, KC Cariappa, Kuldip Yadav, Akash Singh.