Travis Head and Abhishek Sharma are one of the most lethal opening batting combinations this IPL © Sportzpics 300. Three Hundred. Those are the words. The expectation. The casual anticipation of batting reach this year. Bowlers’ open complaints about the impact player’s detrimental effect on their tribe didn’t yield the results it intended. The rule has instead got another season’s renewal and the teams, including the ones set to walk out in Hyderabad on Sunday afternoon, have accepted the reality of needing to embrace the course that the tournament has got itself on. On the eve of the game at a venue whose conditions have notoriously formed a tag-team partnership with batters, SRH head coach Daniel Vettori revealed that captain Pat Cummins has left the onus of performance on them. The finalists got back almost as much of the brutality their batters served the opposition with, and still made it all the way before falling at the final hurdle. Like last season, Cummins expects his batters to do all the heavy-lifting while bowlers navigate life through the treacherous path laid out for them. Sanju Samson narrowed the imbalance between bat and ball down to how different the idea of ‘maximising the PowerPlay’ looks like at the moment. The team he faces on Saturday afternoon smashed two 100-plus scores in this phase last year to top the charts. With the core of the devastating top-order retained and with Ishan Kishan added to it, SRH find themselves to be the prime candidates for any total, however, unprecedented. RR’s task of not being in this line of fire is compounded by the fact that they’ve had their rather competent bowling attack from 2024 stripped down and rebuilt, with a dash of inexperience added in. Sunday afternoon’s clash might lack the history, aura and anticipation of what follows at prime time in Chennai between two serial winners (CSK and MI), but the two teams – with one shimmering trophy adorning their respective cabinets – have what it takes to combat, entertain and script an engrossing plotline of their own. When: SRH vs RR, Match 2, IPL 2025, March 23, 03:30 PM IST Where: Rajiv Gandhi International Stadium, Hyderabad What to expect: Runs and thunderstorms. The Indian Meteorological Department-Hyderabad have issued a yellow alert for thunderstorms with lightning and gusty winds (30-40 kmph) in several parts of Telangana including Hyderabad from Saturday to Monday. That said, there’s no prediction for rain on match day. Head to head: SRH have the upper hand overall, winning 11 of the 20 matches between the two sides. RR have only won once at Hyderabad’s home in five attempts. That tally came very close to doubling last season, only for them to fall short by one run in a last-ball thriller. Team Watch: Sunrisers Hyderabad Injury/Unavailability:The 2024 finalists have a clean bill of health, with Pat Cummins and Nitish Reddy coming through to be ready from the beginning. Tactics & Match-ups: SRH have the spin-smashing arsenal all over their top-order to make it a tough re-initiation into the IPL for Wanindu Hasaranga. The Sri Lankan spinner, who was coincidentally picked by SRH last season but couldn’t feature due to an injury, comes up against the team with the highest-ever strike rate against spin in a single IPL edition – 161.43 in 2024. While Abhishek Sharma has nearly struck at 200 against spin since IPL 2023, his opening partner Travis Head has gone at 164.51, while being even more menacing against pace. SRH then have two middle-order batters in Nitish Reddy and Heinrich Klaasen, who both strike at more than 180 against turn in this period. Hasaranga, with the joint-most T20 wickets since 2024, has the experience and ability to push back and reclaim some balance in an otherwise one-sided match-up. Probable XII:Abhishek Sharma, Travis Head, Ishan Kishan , Nitish Reddy, Heinrich Klaasen, Abhinav Manohar, Sachin Baby/Aniket Verma, Pat Cummins, Harshal Patel, Adam Zampa, Mohammed Shami, Rahul Chahar/Jaydev Unadkat Rajasthan Royals Injury/Unavailability:Samson has confirmed that he hasn’t fully recovered from his finger injury, and will not lead the team in the first three fixtures. Riyan Parag will take over, with Samson featuring as a pure batter. Given the injury is to his finger, RR could swap him in and out as an impact player. Tactics & Match-ups:With the option of playing five Indian batters in the top-six, RR have flexibility with regards to their overseas bowling combinations. Hyderabad was a graveyard for spinners last season, which should prompt them to go with only one of their two Sri Lankan options in Hasaranga. SRH will field a left-heavy top-order but Hasaranga has a googly that he uses generously to mitigate the drawbacks of the match-up. RR had the best PowerPlay bowling unit in 2024 in terms of average (27.48) and economy rate (8.24), putting Afghanistan’s left-arm quick Fazalhaq Farooqi front and centre of carrying the torch ahead in that phase even as the team has a new-look bowling attack. Since 2024, Farooqi has 45 PowerPlay wickets in the format – the best tally for that phase. Probable XII:Yashasvi Jaiswal, Sanju Samson, Nitish Rana, Riyan Parag, Shimron Hetmyer, Dhruv Jurel, Shubham Dubey, Wanindu Hasaranga, Jofra Archer, Tushar Deshpande, Sandeep Sharma, Fazalhaq Farooqi Did you know: – Sanju Samson averages 52.70 and strikes at 162.65 in T20s at the Hyderabad venue. He has 527 runs in 12 innings there, including two fifties and as many centuries. – In his last two seasons (2022 and 2023), Mohammed Shami picked 28 PowerPlay wickets in 33 matches, and conceded runs at just 7.08. In the season when the impact player rule was first introduced (IPL 2023), he conceded runs at 7.50 in the first six overs. What they said: “Just don’t be the team that concedes 300,” Daniel Vettori’s simplistic plans for his bowlers in another impact-player fuelled-season. “I think after my second year of IPL (captaincy) when we reached the finals (2022), I was thinking I am not going to be the captain of Rajasthan Royals forever. So, there has to be someone who is going to come and someone will have to be ready after I leave or after I stop being captain. So, I think myself and the whole franchise have developed lot of leaders in the team. For the next 3 games, we decided that Riyan Parag is ready and capable to lead the side,” Sanju Samsonon RR captaincy.
