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Business News/ Industry / Media/  IPL 9: Does Gujarat Lions have the edge against Sunrisers Hyderabad?
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IPL 9: Does Gujarat Lions have the edge against Sunrisers Hyderabad?

Sunrisers Hyderabad are brimful of quiet confidence after pulling the rug from under Kolkata Knight Riders' feet at the Kotla on Wednesday night

File photo: Sunrisers Hyderabad captain David Warner (R) celebrates the victory over Kolkata Knight Riders with teammates during the 2016 IPL Twenty20 at the Feroz Shah Kotla Cricket Stadium in New Delhi on Wednesday. Photo: AFPPremium
File photo: Sunrisers Hyderabad captain David Warner (R) celebrates the victory over Kolkata Knight Riders with teammates during the 2016 IPL Twenty20 at the Feroz Shah Kotla Cricket Stadium in New Delhi on Wednesday. Photo: AFP

“Good to see you, Lax! Good win last night, congratulations!"

Seated on the lunch table at the hotel where the two teams are staying, Brendon McCullum caught up with V. V. S. Laxman in the first meeting between the two men since 6 May. On that night at the Rajiv Gandhi International Cricket Stadium in Uppal, the Laxman-mentored Sunrisers Hyderabad completed a league double against Gujarat Lions, eking out a nervy five-wicket win in a low-scoring encounter. The stakes will be a lot higher when the teams lock horns at the Feroze Shah Kotla on Friday (27 May) night in Qualifier 2, with a spot in the final of the Indian Premier League 2016 against Royal Challengers Bangalore at stake.

Teammates at the long-defunct Kochi Tuskers Kerala franchise, McCullum and Laxman are parts of sides that must be at opposing ends of the emotion spectrum. Gujarat found themselves within one man of a place in the final at the first time of asking. Having recovered from 9 for 3 to post 158, they reduced Bangalore to 29 for 5 at the M Chinnaswamy Stadium on Tuesday on the back of a brilliant burst from Dhawal Kulkarni, until AB de Villiers threw a spanner in the works with an innings that should have been of rare beauty had he himself not pulled off several of those in his illustrious career. That defeat must have come as a huge shock to the Gujarat system; Suresh Raina’s men have had a couple of days to ponder that result, and to put it behind them.

Hyderabad, on the other hand, are brimful of quiet confidence after pulling the rug from under Kolkata Knight Riders’ feet at the Kotla on Wednesday night. Their win was fashioned by more than one individual, but most hearteningly from the franchise’s perspective, Yuvraj Singh produced a fantastic knock full of expressive strokes on a surface that didn’t necessarily encourage stroke-making with any authority. Hyderabad have already had an immediate taste of both what the Kotla surface has to offer and the pressures of a knockout game. Gujarat must tackle both demons head-on, and they will, given the array of batting riches under Raina’s command.

As a bowling unit, how can you not dread the prospect of bowling at Aaron Finch, McCullum, Raina, Dwayne Smith and Dinesh Karthik? Throw in the out of sorts but eminently explosive Dwayne Bravo and the intrepid Ravindra Jadeja, and Gujarat have a depth to their line-up that overshadows even Bangalore’s.

Then again, it is as a bowling unit that Hyderabad pose the greatest threat. Their most celebrated name, both before and after the tournament-ending injury to Ashish Nehra, is Mustafizur Rahman, but the man that has come to be eulogised and celebrated as The Fizz isn’t ploughing a lone furrow by any stretch of the imagination. In Bhuvneshwar Kumar, he has an outstanding partner at the death. In Barinder Sran, Hyderabad have a young kid full of energy and beans and no little skill, even if he is a little rough around the edges. And in Moises Henriques and Ben Cutting, they have two versatile Aussies that are smart at reading, and adapting to, situations.

They also know the massive threat the muscular Gujarat batting core poses, though knowing what to do to stop them from running away with the game and actually doing so are two entirely different things. “We know who their key players are. They have got very good firing power," said Warner as he looked ahead to Hyderabad’s second knockout clash in three nights. “Dwayne Smith, doctor, has been playing very well. He has been coming in and playing his game. And we know the two boys up front are going to come out hard, and that’s their game. That’s how they play. For us, it is about starting well as a unit, whether we bat or bowl first, make sure we execute our plans."

Towards that end, they might find an ally in the Kotla strip. Going by Wednesday’s evidence, this will be no belter where batsmen can hit through the line because the ball comes off the surface truly and doesn’t deviate from the straight and narrow. The Gujarat top order loves pace on the ball; all through his career, McCullum has believed in ‘the faster they come, the harder I hit ’em’ and Finch is more adept early in the innings at feeding off the faster bowlers. Hyderabad will no doubt mix the speeds up, asking the Gujarat openers to adapt accordingly and knowing full well that if they err just slightly, they will travel a long way. It will be a test of nerve as much as it will be of character.

While Gujarat have a proven, multi-pronged batting group—Raina himself needs just two more runs to complete 400 runs in a season for the eighth time in nine IPLs—and therefore have tended to spread their reliance thick, Hyderabad have been heavily dependent on Warner and Shikhar Dhawan, the openers who were unseparated in hunting down 135 in the first league clash between the teams in Rajkot five weeks back. Towards that end, they would have derived oodles of confidence from the crispness with which Yuvraj struck the ball, and the intent he showcased all the way through, against Kolkata. There are few more majestic sights on the cricket field than Yuvraj in full cry, standing up tall and taking on the quicks or twinkle-toeing down the track and massacring the spinners. An encore on Friday won’t be out of place.

Gujarat’s No. 1 status in the league points table has given them a second bite at the cherry; Hyderabad will look at this as their best chance to make the 29 May final at the Chinnaswamy and give themselves a shot at making up for their 45-run loss in their first game of the tournament at that same venue against Bangalore. If you are in the national capital on Friday, a visit to the Kotla won’t be a bad evening out.

R Kaushik is Managing Editor at Wisden India. Mint has a content partnership with Wisden India for the IPL 9 season.

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Published: 27 May 2016, 05:31 PM IST
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