CHENNAI: It’s the point of no return now. After the roller-coaster of the last two months, Rajasthan Royals and Sunrisers Hyderabad will fight it out at the MA Chidambaram Stadium on Friday night for a place in the IPL final against Kolkata Knight Riders.
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With CSK exiting in the league stage, the madness and the clamour for tickets that’s normally attached to an IPL game in the city isn’t there, but that doesn’t mean the fans won’t turn up.While SRH have a following in the city due to the obvious southern India connect, Chennai boy Ravichandran Ashwin’s presence in the Rajasthan Royals team will surely make many root for the 2008 champions.
It can be noted that probably the best match of this IPL was played between the two sides on May 2, when SRH won by one run and started a three-week winless streak for RR. That streak was finally snapped in Ahmedabad on Wednesday with a morale-boosting win against Royal Challengers Bengaluru.
It’s to be seen if Sanju Samson‘s side can build on that momentum as SRH try to regroup themselves after the loss to KKR at the Narendra Modi Stadium a day before. TOI takes a look at what could be the deciding factors in this battle of equals…
How RR deal with Travi-Shek
The Travis Head-Abhishek Sharma duo has taken this IPL by storm. The duo’s no fear approach has often taken games away from opposition in the powerplay itself. But in the last two games, Head was dismissed for 0, left-arm swing bowlers Arshdeep Singh and Mitchell Starc dismissing him with balls swinging in.
RR also have Kiwi left-armer Trent Boult in their lineup and Samson would surely unleash him to get the destructive Head out of the way early. If Royals win this match-up, they will definitely have the upper-hand and then they will bank on the experience of their spinners-R Ashwin and Yuzvendra Chahal-to deal with the Abhishek threat on a pitch which should have something for the spinners.
Yuzi-Ashwin factor
There’s absolutely no denying that this is the best spin attack of this IPL. While leggie Chahal is an absolute master of T20 cricket and has made the Indian team for the T20 World Cup on the basis of performances in this IPL, Ashwin is a modern-day great.
While Ashwin’s ability to take the ball away from the left-handers with his beautiful drift could be crucial in powerplay, Yuzi has to come into his own against the likes of Heinrich Klaasen. The South African is a feared hitter of spin in the middle-overs and the Yuzi-Klaasen duel has to be one of the highlights of this clash.
SRH’s fifth-bowler issue
Sunrisers, in their last couple of games, have gone in with four specialist bowlers with spin and medium-pace allrounders Shahbaz Ahmed and Nitish Reddy sharing the fifth bowler’s slot. It is diametrically opposite to the RR formula, which is to bank on five top-quality bowlers to do the job.
It will be interesting to see if SRH stick to the approach in this age of ‘Impact Sub’ in a game as crucial as this. If they do, one can be rest assured RR batters will wait for these four overs to try and take the game away from Pat Cummins‘ boys.
