Today, the second qualifier of the Tata IPL 2024 will be played at the M. A. Chidambaram Stadium in Chennai between the elimination winner Rajasthan Royals and the Qualifier 1 loser Sunrisers Hyderabad to book their seats in the finals and face the dominant two-time IPL winner Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) on May 26.
The 2nd Qualifier will be a good match to see as it will be a battle between Sunrisers Hyderabad’s strong batting lineup against a strong bowling lineup of Rajasthan Royals.
Tata IPL 2024 Qualifier 2 Between SRH and RR
After losing to KKR in Qualifier 1, the Pat Cummins-led Sunrisers Hyderabad side will take on the Sanju Samson-led Rajasthan Royals, who ended their losing streak against the Royal Challengers Bangalore in the elimination round, to give them another shot at the title race. On the other hand, SRH performed poorly against a dominant Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) side, who trampled their upper and lower order to a total of 160, which the Men in Purple chased down easily.
Both the Sunrisers Hyderabad and Rajasthan Royals don’t have any good and lovely memories at the M.A. Chidambaram Stadium in Chennai, as both teams struggled against the likes of CSK’s Ravindra Jadeja and their strong fast-paced medium bowling lineup. But as the tournament goes on, the spin bowling department has become an important part of every IPL team for taking wickets, just like the spin combination of Sunil Narine and Varun Chakravarthy of KKR.
The aggressive batting order of SRH especially with the likes of Abhisekh Sharma, Heinrich Klaasen and Travis Head, who had been the strongpoint of the Tata IPL 2024 with Head and Sharma being called affectionately as ‘Travishek’ since both of this openers scored massive runs for their team- Head scored 553 runs while Sharma scored an impressive 470 runs. Heinrich Klassen also played brilliantly in this tournament and added some runs of 413.
But the RR bowlers Ashwin and Chahal also had an impressive season with many RR bowlers picked up many wickets with their batsman like Samson, Shimran Hetmeyer and Rovman Powell who picked up the innings for RR after the departure of their star player of the season Jos Buttler.
Both RR and SRH played 19 matches between them, in which Sunrisers Hyderbad(SRH) won 10 matches while Rajasthan Royals(RR) won 9 matches.
Key Battles
Ashwin and Chahal Vs Klassen: The battle between the duo of Indian spinners Ashwin and Chahal against the South African power-hitter Heinrich Klaasen will be a battle to look into. Klaasen has an impressive record of scoring against spinners, especially during their match against PBKS (Punjab Kings), where he had an impressive strike rate of 193.68. Both the RR spinners need to be careful and counter the threat against Klaasen. Both the RR spinners have been amazing in this tournament, with former CSK player Ashwin picking up his form recently and Yuzvendra Chahal picking up 18 wickets in the Tata IPL 2024.
Boult vs Travisekh: The ‘Travishek’ duo was stopped recently after the consecutive ducks of Australian World Cup winner Travis Head. The left-arm bowling department has been a mess and a nightmare for the SRH openers, especially for Head, who scored ducks against Arshdeep Singh of PBSK and Mitchell Starc of KKR. It will all come down to the RR’s powerplay specialist, Trent Boult, who has been disturbing the top-order batsman, and they struggled to play against the left-arm fast-pace Kiwi. It will be a key battle between Travishek, who scored an impressive 11.48 runs per over in the powerplay, and Boult, who picked up an economy rate of 9.71 this season with nine wickets in his bag.
Pitch Report
The M.A. Chidambaram Stadium in Chennai, most commonly known as the Chepauk Stadium, is known for bowling, and it greatly favors the spinners of the bowling department since the surface gets a good turn and grip, which disables the batsman from playing any shots against the spinners. For this reason, teams winning the toss opted to bat first, as most teams have won five out of seven games this season.
The cricket fans who are going to attend the match can expect favorable weather as the temperature should be around 32 °C, there is no chance for rain, and the wind will blow at a rate of 19 km/h, providing some relief to the players. However, the humidity can affect it, as it is stated to be around 76%.
Predicted Lineup
SRH: Travis Head, Abhishek Sharma, Rahul Tripathi, Glenn Phillips/Vijayakanth Viyaskanth, Nitish Kumar Reddy, Heinrich Klaasen (wk), Abdul Samad, Shahbaz Ahmed, Pat Cummins (capt), Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Mayank Markande.
(Impact substitude:Sanvir Singh, Mayank Markande, Jaydev Unadkat)
RR: Tom Kohler-Cadmore, Yashasvi Jaiswal, Sanju Samson (c/wk), Riyan Parag, Dhruv Jurel, Shimron Hetmyer, Ravichandran Ashwin, Trent Boult, Sandeep Sharma, Yuzvendra Chahal and Avesh Khan.
(impact substitude: Nandre Burger, Keshav Maharaj, Shubham Dubey, Donovan Ferreira)
