Match Preview

Sunrisers Hyderabad jumped from seventh position to fifth after defending 134 on Wednesday against Rajasthan Royals. It only makes the mid-table battle more compelling, as teams that missed out in the first half of the tournament look to catch up in the second.

Sunrisers are known for defending middling targets and on a sluggish pitch in Ahmedabad, didn't let Royals get close. While the bowling looks in good health, their top-order concerns remain. Shikhar Dhawan has four scores in the 30s but hasn't gone on to convert those. Aaron Finch, after scores of 88 and 44, has three sub-20 scores. In their last game, they had KL Rahul and Naman Ojha in the top four, ahead of David Warner, but they fell short of expectations. There is instability in the batting and while it didn't matter on Wednesday, Sunrisers wouldn't want to routinely leave it to their bowlers to win games.

Delhi Daredevils continue to languish at the bottom and will have to try and win most, if not all, of the remaining games to qualify for the play-offs. Playing at home has made no difference to their fortunes, for they have lost three out of three at the Kotla. Kevin Pietersen is yet to play the type of game-changing knocks he is known for. Their bowlers have struggled for wickets, having picked up seven in the last three games combined. In seven games, they have only picked up 28 wickets. Sunrisers on the other hand have picked up 44 from the same number of games.

What our expert think about the game? Read on...

PunterPolls Prediction

Before predicting the game we would like to remind our followers that we are not the ones who are selling match reports, neither we believe that cricket matches are fix. We believe in Cricket and respect every aspect of the game from pitch report to team selection and from couple of fours after wicket fall to few good overs in the depth while defending small total.

Delhi's is not doing any good, they do have some powerful hitters but their bowling is crap and captaincy is in a mess. Only chance they do have to win any game is to chasing a descent target on a batting friendly wicket, like they did against the KKR.

As far as Sunriser is concern, they are struggling at batting front but bowling is impressive. In T20, one good performance by any batsmen can do wonders for the team but need couple of bowlers to defend the total on board.

Delhi's ground is small, pitch is bit on slower side but in the evening game it doesn't matter much. According to us team winning the toss should opted to field first. And for all the above reasons, chasing team definitely will have an extra edge.

But this is T20 Cricket where game can be switched in an over. So, please check our comments in our comments section of the page or Punters Wall.

Updates

1. Delhi 103/3 After 13.1 overs. Time for rain, and being a Delhite I can say that weather is not that great and we are expecting a heavy rain for at least 30 minutes to an hour. Match ODDs: 1.68 SRH. As predicted we are supporting chasing team and that is Sunrisers in this match.
2. SRH got the target of 144. I am in Delhi now and can see slight drizzle but clouds are very dark which means if the rain started, its been white wash for sure. Match ODDs 1.30 SRH and if SRH got 5 overs of play, we are sure that SRH will definitely make it.