Sunrisers to punish slow chasing CSK

The Chennai Super Kings really need to start stringing some good performances together if they are going to reach the play offs this year and they will be hopeful that a good performance in this match against the Sunrisers Hyderabad can be the start of their recovery. For the Sunrisers they will be wanting to play on a pitch with more life in it than the deck they played on in their defeat at Dubai on Sunday.

Snail paced chasers

It is becoming a concerning theme for the Chennai Super Kings, who are struggling to chase fairly moderate sized totals. It was the Royal Challengers Bangalore who took the two points from them in a 37 run win masterminded by Virat Kohli. They looked pretty good again with the ball CSK, as they have done for much of the tournament so far. Sam Curran bowled a tidy first three overs before going for 24 from his last and Ravi Jadeja bowled a tight 2-0-7-0. Shardul Thakur took two wickets but the Super Kings struggled to make serious inroads in to the RCB middle order, letting them get to a score higher than they would have thought of getting.

In response, CSK lost both of their openers early with the inform Faf du Plessis going for 8 and Shane Watson for 14 and both of them left the crease with strike rates of under 100. Ambati Rayudu (42) and Narayan Jagadeesan (33) gave CSK hope but once the power hitters of Dhoni, Curran, Jadeja and Bravo all went for single figures, it was game over.

Good signs from a narrow defeat

There was several promising signs for the Sunrisers to take from their defeat on Sunday afternoon to the Rajasthan Royals. On what was a very slow and turgid wicket, their first innings score of 158 kept them well in the contest. 54 from Manish Pandey and 48 from David Warner helped them reach their total which they would have been cautiously optimistic with.

They bowled very tidily with two wickets for the ever so consistent Rashid Khan and two for Khaleel Ahmed and when they had the Royals 26-3 with Stokes, Smith and Buttler all gone they were by far the favourites to win the game. But it wasn’t to be for the Sunrisers who couldn’t break the middle to lower order partnerships that got the Royals over the line with just one ball of the match left to bowl.

Match Tip

Warner and Bairstow are starting to look something like their best as opposed to the hit and miss Watson and du Plessis who could win you the game, but are more likely to get you off to a slow start.

I am backing the Sunrisers Hyderabad to have a higher score at the end of the powerplay against the Chennai Super Kings at 1.75 with LeoVegas.

Bet Sunrisers Hyderabad to score more in the powerplay on LeoVegas