7.27pm Out come the umpires, Pant does the talking in the LSG huddle and then brings out a wide smile, Head leads the openers beyond the rope. We’re minutes away from the action. Shardul Thakur with the new ball again, running in to Head with a slip. Let’s get this party started!
So what do these changes mean? That LSG have three quicks this time – Shardul, Avesh and Prince – and spinners in Bishnoi, Digvesh Rathi apart from some part-timers in Markram and Badoni. Two wristspinners, not bad, of which one bowls a lot more googlies than legbreaks, and no room for left-arm spinner Siddharth against the trio of Head, Abhishek and Kishan.
Sai Krishna: “SRH fan here… there’s more noise about 300 from opposition fans and neutrals than SRH fans… We’re happy that the team is playing well but it’s strange suddenly everyone’s starting to call the pitch a “highway”. Did anyone watch the RR match?” So today’s pitch is a fresh one, different from the one used in the RR game, doesn’t have as much grass, and Deep Dasgupta said is harder as well.
Dhaval: “LSG has to bring in a foreign fast/spin bowler to go with the Indian counterparts. Their batting is really strong. Need that extra bite in the bowling department. “
LSG win the toss and opt to bowl first. Pant says they want to “get them out early as possible and look to chase the target.” He confirms Avesh is fit, so Shahbaz Ahmed misses out. “Doesn’t matter how many they score, we’re gonna chase it down.” Shots fired from the LSG captain. An update: LSG have also brought in Abdul Samad in their bowling XI. M Siddharth goes out.
Losing the toss doesn’t really chang things for SRH, Cummins says. They’re unchanged.
SRH XI: 1 Travis Head, 2 Abhishek Sharma, 3 Ishan Kishan (wk), 4 Nitish Kumar Reddy, 5 Heinrich Klaasen, 6 Aniket Verma, 7 Abhinav Manohar, 8 Pat Cummins (capt), 9 Simarjeet Singh, 10 Harshal Patel, 11 Mohammed Shami
Impact options: Sachin Baby, Jaydev Unadkat, Zeeshan Ansari, Adam Zampa and Wiaan Mulder. Since SRH bat first and have three overseas in the starting XI, they will likely bring in Adam Zampa again for a batter like Head.
“Just curious, why would Head need to be replaced? Head can bowl some offies, and the LSG middle order is left handed through and through.” That’s true, Hashir
LSG XI: 1 Aiden Markram, 2 Nicholas Pooran, 3 Rishabh Pant (capt & wk), 4 Ayush Badoni, 5 David Miller, 6 Abdul Samad, 7 Shardul Thakur, 8 Ravi Bishnoi, 9 Avesh Khan, 10 Digvesh Rathi, 11 Prince Yadav
Impact options: Shahbaz, Siddharth, Mitchell Marsh, Himmat Singh, Akash Singh. Three overseas in their starting XI as well, so they’ll get in Mitch Marsh for a bowler
6.55pm We don’t know yet if there will be dew or not, because the first game here this season (SRH vs RR) was a day game, but it’s possible there won’t be much because the temperature isn’t expected to dip that much. I’m no scientist but I think dew comes into effect when there’s a big gap between the day and night temperatures. Right now the stadium in Hyderabad looks nice and colourful under the floodlights, fans in orange are trickling in as we get ready for the toss.
Prashant : “@Vijit – The only way this could end in a low scoring nail biter is if LSG bats first and score 149. SRH will chase it down in 10 over while LSG fans can keep biting their nails.” Why does this sound familiar?
Jayanth: “If there’s one team that might match a batting score of SRH that should be Punjab Kings – provided their openers don’t eat up too much of the powerplay. All other teams shouldn’t thinking the lines of outscoring SRH in a high scoring encounter ” LSG also have the left-handed trio of Pant, Miller and Pooran in their middle order. Who knows…
Narayanan: “A flat highway means bowlers are out of equation and LSG won’t mind that”
Vijit: “I have a strong feeling. This is going to be low scoring nail biter (In the range of 150s). All this hype of runfest is going to die down soon.”
6.45pm If Avesh is available, LSG will likely leave out someone like Prince Yadav, who made his IPL debut against DC and leaked 47 runs. Should they bring in some pace and venom in the form of Shamar Joseph, assuming he’s fit? That would mean leaving out an overseas player out of Markram, Mitch Marsh, Pooran and Miller, and the odds are against Markram. But that would also mean bringing in someone like Arshin Kulkarni (Maharashtra batter) or Aryan Juyal (UP’s wk-batter) at the top of the order. Kulkarni has played IPL, Juyal hasn’t but Juyal has a lot more experience in the domestic circuit and was also the UP captain in the recent Ranji Trophy, which he finished with scores of 138 and 200*.
Dan Weston: “Standby for a 300 folks!”
6.40pm All the chatter in the lead up to this game is about how SRH could demolish the LSG bowling which is still without a few injured players, but at least Avesh Khan has joined them. He’s expected to be fit for today’s game but we should get a proper confirmation in under half hour when the coin is flipped. SRH took down a not-so-bad-looking Rajasthan Royals line-up in a day game on Sunday. ‘Could they breach Mount 300’ today is the question everyone is asking, so let’s see if all this hype actually builds up to that number. What all factors could play a role in that, what should the team winning the toss do, should LSG change their bowling attack? All that’s covered in Ekanth’s preview here.
Prasanna Kumar : “Fasten your seatbelts for another run-fest. My instinct says that LSG will crack this and upset SRH !!” What a spanner that will throw in SRH’s engine.
Anand: “Such a flat deck may assist LSG as well as they too have explosive batters and the batting depth is there too. “
6.30pm Welcome to Highway Hyderabad! After the sticky and slow wicket in Guwahati last night, we’re back to the deccan in Hyderabad where we’re expecting three things: runs, runs and runs. It’s not just because of SRH’s mighty batting line-up, it’s not just because LSG have a severely depleted bowling attack, it’s also because the pitch we are seeing for today appears to be much flatter and devoid of the grass that the SRH vs RR game had on Sunday when 528 runs were piled up. We’re on to match number 7, the second game in Hyderabad, and the second game for both these teams – SRH and LSG – who had contrasting results to start with. I’m Vishal Dikshit and I’ll be joined later by Abhimanyu Bose who’s having a snack not far from me.
