Sunrisers Hyderabad (SRH) will play Chennai Super Kings (CSK) in Match 46 of IPL 2022, on 1 May at the Maharashtra Cricket Association Stadium in Gahunje, Pune.
Barring a miracle, Chennai will not be defending their title this year. They come into this match ninth in the table with just two wins under the belt. With most of the teams ahead of them playing this weekend, the play-offs will soon be out of their reach.
Sunrisers are currently in fourth place, but they know they need to keep winning to keep the pressure on the sides around them.
Both teams also come into this match off defeats. Sunrisers lost to Gujarat Titans by five wickets, going down off the final ball of the match, while Chennai lost to Punjab Kings by 11 runs. However, prior to that, SRH had bounced back from two heavy defeats with five wins on the bounce.
As for CSK, although they now seem to have settled on their line-up, they remain inconsistent and many individuals are now playing for personal pride as much as hoping for team success.
And, inevitably, there will be speculation about the future of M.S. Dhoni, who took over as captain in the aftermath of Ravindra Jadeja's mid-season resignation. Have the disappointments of this year been enough to finally persuade him to hang up his gloves for ever, or will be want to come back next year, and try and finish on another high?
Likely XIs:
Chennai Super Kings: Ruturaj Gaikwad, Robin Uthappa, Ambati Rayudu, Shivam Dube, Ravindra Jadeja, M.S. Dhoni (c & wk), Dwaine Pretorius, Dwayne Bravo, Mitchell Santner, Maheesh Theekshana, Mukesh Choudhary
Sunrisers Hyderabad: Abhishek Sharma, Kane Williamson (c), Rahul Tripathi, Aiden Markram, Nicholas Pooran (wk), Shashank Singh, Washington Sundar, Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Marco Jansen, Umran Malik, T. Natarajan
Fantasy Tips:
• Sundar, having missed a couple of games with injury, is back for SRH, and will be looking to prove his merit.
• The Gujarat batting line-up took to the bowling of Jansen, and he will want to bounce back with a solid performance.
• Bravo continues to set IPL records, and Chennai will need him to be at his best again;
• Williamson to set the tone for Hyderabad with another important innings.
Prediction:
SRH will start favourites for the simple reason that their motivation is higher. They still have every reason to hope they will be involved in the play-offs, whilst for CSK they know they can forget about them for this year.
Streaming:
‘Match 46 between SRH and CSK will start at 19:30 on Sunday, May 1st. You can watch the match on the Star Network and Hotstar.