Mumbai Indians Vs Sunrisers Hyderabad: A Fight of wooden Spooners

Sunrisers Hyderabad and Chennai Super Kings would be desperate to find answers to their predicament when they take on Kings XI Punjab on Sunday.

Hit hard by a start that least defines them, Chennai Super Kings would be eying a decent win against kxip.

So used to be on top of their game in the previous editions, sitting at the bottom of the points table now with three losses in four matches is an unknown territory for the Mahendra Singh Dhoni-led side.Nothing has worked for them despite having the resources.They even made three changes to their playing XI for Friday’s game against Sunrisers Hyderabad but neither comeback of Ambati Rayudu nor the presence of Dwayne Bravo could lift the gloom.

A misfiring top-order, save Faf du Plessis, combined with inadequate run-flow in the middle overs and the habit of leaving way too much for the climax, proved to be their bane in the three consecutive defeats.They have it in them to turn it around but everything — fielding, bowling and batting — has to come together.When the result go a team’s way, many of the frailties gets hidden but even the smallest of things get exposed when the opposite happens.The desperation was palpable on Dhoni’s face after the latest loss.

“Long time back once we lost three in a row. We need to get a lot of things right. It is the professionalism. We need to take our catches, not bowl no-balls. Those are the controllables and may be we are getting too relaxed,” he said.

Despite scoring in excess of 200 twice, KL Rahul’s side lost those matches because of their limited bowling resources. None, expect Mohammed Shami, gives confidence of stopping the rival batsmen.This is exactly what CSK must look to exploit. They need to get Punjab’s top-order early.

Team News and Predicted XI:

Chennai Super Kings:

They should find a way to accumulate the struggling batting order. Kedar having a bad time can be made to sit.

Predicted XI:

Shane Watson, Faf du Plessis, Ambati Rayudu, MS Dhoni (C&WK), Kedar Jadhav/Jagdeeshan, Ravindra Jadeja, Sam Curran, Dwayne Bravo, Deepak Chahar, Piyush Chawla and Shardul Thakur

Kings XI Punjab:

On the other hand, Kings XI Punjab has different worries, the team has enough firepower in batting and quality bowling, but it seems to lose the plot somehwhere in the middle from which it doesn't recover.

Although death bowling has also been a concern for KXIP, they will fancy their chances against an out-of-form CSK on Sunday. KXIP wouldn't be too happy with their head-to-head record, which reads 13-9 in CSK's favour.

Predicted XI:

KL Rahul (C&WK), Mayank Agarwal, Karun Nair, Glenn Maxwell/Chris Gayle, Nicholas Pooran, James Neesham/Mujeeb Ur Rehman, Sarfaraz Khan, Krishnappa Gowtham, Ravi Bishnoi, Mohammed Shami and Sheldon Cottrell.