SRH turn to home remedies to end losing run

Sunrisers Hyderabad have had a tough time replicating last season's explosiveness that took them all the way to the summit clash. They started big, but have since lost three straight games, two of those on the road. They now return to the comforts of home, but face an opponent that's taken a leaf out of their book.

Skipper Shubman Gill, fellow opener Sai Sudharsan and Jos Buttler make up Titans' top-order that has collectively posted a total of 437 runs in the three outings of IPL 2025 - second only behind LSG's 482. However, SRH's trio of Travis Head, Abhishek Sharma and Ishan Kishan have scored only 284 in four games thus far. Take out the new recruit's century from this, and it paints a worrisome picture of the batting woes last year's runners-up are facing.

SRH's bowling frailities have also been exposed. They have been the worst bowling unit this season, ranked 10th in terms of economy rate (10.83) and average (41.15). In their most recent defeat, on a surface where the ball was stopping and gripping, the SRH bowlers failed to make the most of the conditions and allowed KKR to run away to an above-par score of 200, of which they conceded 78 in the slog-overs alone. SRH's death-overs economy of 15.04 is the worst among 10 teams in the competition, and more often than not putting excess pressure on an already misfiring batting unit.

In that respect, the Titans are only marginally better with the last-five overs ER of 12.73. But their formidable batting has papered over those cracks, for now at least. Even in the 11-run loss against PBKS in their tournament opener, Titans ran them very close in a massive chase of 244. The turnaround since then has seen them stack up 196 and successfuly defend it against Mumbai Indians in Ahmedabad, followed by a much more convincing eight-wicket win against RCB in Bengaluru while chasing 170. In batting-friendly climes of Hyderabad, this could well be the differentiator on Sunday.

When: Sunday, April 6 at 7:30 PM IST

Where:Rajiv Gandhi International Stadium, Hyderabad

What to expect: Hyderabad's pitches have made for high-scoring encounters with average first-innings total of 213.SRH themselves made 286 in their tournament opener, against RR, at the venue. The team winning the toss has opted to field in 16 of the 18 matches in IPL 2025 so far, including RR in Hyderabad late last month.

Head to Head: GT lead SRH 3-1 in 4 completed games. Titans registered a 7-wicket win at home last season, while the reverse fixture in Hyderabad was abandoned.

Team Watch

Sunrisers Hyderabad

Injury & Availability: There are no reported injury concerns.

Tactics & Match-ups: Mohammed Shami, who was the leader of GT's pace attack until 2023, has dismissed Shubman Gill twice in five innings in the format, while the opener strikes at only 113.88 against him and averages just 20.5, making it an enticing match-up.

Probable XII: Travis Head, Abhishek Sharma, Ishan Kishan, Nitish Kumar Reddy, Aniket Verma, Heinrich Klaasen (wk), Kamindu Mendis, Simarjeet Singh/Jaydev Unadkat, Pat Cummins (C), Harshal Patel, Mohammed Shami, Zeeshan Ansari

Gujarat Titans

Injury & Availability:Kagiso Rabada has returned home due to personal reasons, and will be unavailable. The South Africa pacer missed GT's previous game too where the team used just three overseas options.

Tactics & Match-ups: R Sai Kishore has flourished in IPL 2025 with 6 wickets so far in three games at an economy of 7.42. The onus would be on him to keep in check some of the best hitters of spin - Klaasen (SR 185.08) and Abhishek (SR 197.31) - since IPL 2023 that SRH pack in their line-up.

Probable XII:Sai Sudharsan, Shubman Gill (C), Jos Buttler (wk), Sherfane Rutherford, Shahrukh Khan, Rahul Tewatia, Arshad Khan, Rashid Khan, Ravisrinivasan Sai Kishore, Mohammed Siraj, Prasidh Krishna, Ishant Sharma

Did you know?

- There have been nine 200-plus totals in 8 IPL matches in Hyderabad since 2024, four matches with 200-plus scores in each innings

- Sai Sudharsan only has one single-digit score in his last-seven IPL innings, and the lowest score in the other six outingsis 49.

- Besides some unwanted bowling numbers this season, SRH also lead the charts in no. of misfields (17), while GT have only six against their record.

What they said:

"We need to be realistic, three games in a row, it hasn't come off for us. We need to maybe look back at whether we could have chosen better options. Our batters are best when they take the game on, but looking back maybe we could have taken different options. I will probably address it on whether we could have used different options, but don't want to dwell too much on it. We go back to a venue we know so well now." - SRH captain Pat Cummins following his team's third successive defeat.

"He (Siraj) obviously has a very good relationship with Ashish (Nehra) and I think that you're seeing the fruits of his hard work and the work he's doing with Ashish, the conversations he's having with Ashish." - GT's Director of Cricket Vikram Solanki