High-flying Hyderabad face Kings XI Punjab in IPL clash

Hyderabad, April 22।  On a high after back-to-back wins, an in-form Sunrisers Hyderabad will aim to continue their winning run when they take on Kings XI Punjab in an Indian Premier League (IPL) match here on Saturday.

After two losses in a row, skipper David Warner led from the front to steer Hyderabad to a convincing win over Mumbai Indians followed by Gujarat Lions to climb to fourth in the points table with four points from as many games.

While Punjab are struggling at the moment and are placed at the bottom of the table with two points from four games, having lost three and won one. The side comes into the match after a six-wicket loss at the hands of Kolkata Knight Riders.

Hyderabad will again rely on skipper Warner to fire for them at the top at the Rajiv Gandhi International Stadium. The Australian hard-hitting batsman sits at the top of the leading run scorers with 235 runs. 

His unbeaten 137-run partnership with Shikhar Dhawan which helped them bag a 10-wicket win over Gujarat will give the side a lot of confidence ahead of their home game. Dhawan who has not been among the runs lately will take confidence from his unbeaten 53-run knock to do better on Saturday.

Moises Henriques, Eion Morgan, Deepak Hooda, Naman Ojha coming up in the middle and lower order make a formidable batting line-up.

Bhuvneshwar Kumar has been leading the bowling attack with full responsibility and he is well supported at the other end by young Bangladeshi sensation Muztafizur Rahman, Barinder Sran and Henriques.

On the other hand, Punjab despite having match-winners like Glenn Maxwell, Shaun Marsh, David Miller and Murali Vijay in their side have been inconsistent in their batting department.

The Miller-led side will aim to put aside their previous defeats and put up a good show to climb up the points table ladder.

In the bowling line-up, Mohit Sharma, Axar Patel, Sandeep Sharma will look to take a step ahead and put up a collective effort to stop the Hyderabad batting powerhouse from exploding.

The squads:

Kings XI Punjab: David Miller (captain), Kyle Abbott, Murali Vijay, Manan Vohra, Mitchell Johnson, Shaun Marsh, Glenn Maxwell, Anureet Singh, Axar Patel, Wriddhiman Saha (WK), Pardeep Sahu, Sandeep Sharma, Mohit Sharma, Marcus Stoinis, Swapnil Singh, Armaan Jaffer, Farhaan Behardien, KC Cariappa, Rishi Dhawan, Gurkeerat Singh Mann, Nikhil Naik, Shardul Thakur.

Sunrisers Hyderabad: David Warner (captain), Ashish Reddy, Ricky Bhui, Bipul Sharma, Trent Boult, Ben Cutting, Shikar Dhawan, Moises Henriques, Deepak Hooda, Siddarth Kaul, Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Abhimanyu Midtun, Eoin Morgan, Mustafizur Rahman, Ashish Mehra, Naman Ojha, Vijay Shanker, Karn Sharma, Barinder Sran, T Suman, Aditya Tare, Kane Williamson and Yuvraj Singh.