Match 37 of Indian Premier League (IPL) 2021 will be between two struggling teams of this season, Sunrisers Hyderabad and Punjab Kings. It will be an evening fixture of the first double-header day in the UAE leg of IPL this year, and the second match at the Sharjah Cricket Stadium.
The Playoffs hopes lie on the knife's edge for both teams, who occupy the last two spots in the points table. The Kings need to win all their remaining six matches to reach 16 points – a number that usually guarantees a Playoffs berth. .– while Sunrisers can get to a maximum of 14 points and hope for other teams to falter.
The Sunrisers have won only once in this IPL, but that was against the Kings, who, in their previous encounter, against Rajasthan, gave away two points in dramatic fashion. K.L. Rahul's men, however, will enjoy the small boundaries at Sharjah, or at least their track records suggest so. In hindsight, Sunrisers bowler had happy memories at this venue in two of their matches last season.
Likely XIs
Punjab Kings: K.L. Rahul (c & wk), Mayank Agarwal, Aiden Markram, Nicholas Pooran, Deepak Hooda, Fabian Allen, Chris Jordan, Harpreet Brar, Arshdeep Singh, Mohammed Shami, Ravi Bishnoi
Sunrisers Hyderabad: David Warner, Wriddhiman Saha (wk), Kane Williamson (c), Manish Pandey, Kedar Jadhav, Jason Holder, Abdul Samad, Rashid Khan, Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Sandeep Sharma, Khaleel Ahmed.
Betway Fantasy Tips
- Do pick the Rahul-Agarwal pair if you want to maximise batting points. You can make in-form Rahul as your captain as well.
- Kings' Arshdeep bowls in the death overs and uses his variations quite aptly to outfox the batters. He can be a decent choice as vice-captain.
- Jordan and Ellis are among overseas pace bowling options who can play for the Kings XI. Adil Rashid had an expensive start to his IPL career in the previous game. You may look to pick the newcomer, who can add more depth to Punjab's death bowling.
Prediction
Punjab Kings will finally cross the winning line against the out of sorts Sunrisers Hyderabad tonight.
Blitzpools fantasy XI
K.L. Rahul (c & wk), Mayank Agarwal, Aiden Markram, Kane Williamson, Manish Pandey, Jason Holder, Rashid Khan, Mohammed Shami, Arshdeep Singh (vc), Chris Jordan, Khaleel Ahmed
