Hyderabad face Gujarat in must-win IPL tie (Preview)

Sunrisers Hyderabad will aim to go for the kill and cement their place in the top four when they face Gujarat Lions in their last league tie of the Indian Premier League (IPL) here on Saturday.

Placed at the fourth spot in the standings with seven wins from 13 matches, Hyderabad find themselves in a must-win situation to qualify for the play-offs.

Gujarat, on the other hand, are at the penultimate spot in the eight-team standings and can only be party spoilers for Hyderabad.

Even if Hyderabad lose, they can still go through provided Kings XI Punjab (14 points from 13 games) are not able to beat Rising Pune Supergiant on Sunday. But Hyderabad will not look for favours from Pune.

Going into Saturday's tie, Hyderabad will bank on their skipper David Warner and in-form opener Shikhar Dhawan to lay a solid platform for the likes of Kane Williamson, Yuvraj Singh and Deepak Hooda to explode lower down.

In the bowling, medium pacer Bhuvneshwar Kumar and Afghan leg-spinner Rashid Khan have been Warner's go-to bowlers while the likes of veteran Ashish Nehra, Siddharth Kaul and Mohammed Siraj have also been amongst the wickets.

Gujarat on the other hand, will hope to finish the season on a high. With four wins from their 13 outings, they are already out of the race to the play-offs and can only play for pride.

While their batting has clicked big time, with skipper Suresh Raina, Dinesh Karthik, Brendon McCullum and Ishan Kishan in full flow, their main headache is the lack of depth in the bowling department.

In their previous outing against Delhi Daredevils, the bowlers let the team down after failing to defend a mammoth 195 as Shreyas Iyer single-handedly took the game away with a 57-ball 96.

Gujarat's bowling department, led by left-arm spinner Ravindra Jadeja has lacked intensity and failed to fire collectively.

Besides Jadeja, the pace battery comprising Basil Thampi, James Faulkner, Dhawal Kulkarni, Pradeep Sangwan have all failed to rise to the occasion for the side.

Squads:

Gujarat Lions: Suresh Raina (Captain), Akshadeep Nath, Basil Thampi, Shubham Agarwal, Dwayne Smith, Chirag Suri, James Faulkner, Aaron Finch, Manpreet Gony, Ishan Kishan, Ravindra Jadeja, Shadab Jakati, Dinesh Karthik (WK), Dhawal Kulkarni, Praveen Kumar, Brandon McCullum, Pradeep Sangwan, Jason Roy, Jaydev Shah, Shelly Shaurya, Nathusingh, Tejas Baroka.

Sunrisers Hyderabad: David Warner (Captain), Tanmay Agarwal, Ricky Bhui, Bipul Sharma, Ben Cutting, Shikhar Dhawan, Eklavya Dwivedi, Moises Henriques, Deepak Hooda, Chris Jordan, Siddarth Kaul, Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Ben Laughlin, Abhimanyu Mithun, Mohammad Nabi Mohammed Siraj, Mustafizur Rahman, Ashish Nehra, Naman Ojha (WK), Rashid Khan, Vijay Shankar, Barinder Sran, Pravin Tambe, Kane Williamson, Yuvraj Singh.

--IANS

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