Bowlers will be up for another night of thankless hard work at the Rajiv Gandhi International Stadium in Hyderabad on Thursday when Sunriers Hyderabad meet Lucknow Super Giants in the Indian Premier League (IPL) 2025.
The last time the Sunrisers Hyderabad batters stepped out to bat, they posted the second-highest ever total in the IPL history, surging to a massive 287/6 in 20 overs against Rajasthan Royals on March 23.
However, the record for the highest-ever total held by SRH will come under threat once again on Thursday when the home side runs into LSG, who opened their campaign in IPL 2025 with a narrow 1-wicket defeat to Delhi Capitals in Visakhapatnam with both teams reaching 200-plus scores.
They will be expecting another rollicking start by Travis Head and Abhishek Sharma while Ishan Kishan will hope to reach the three-figure mark once again to maintain his form. With Heinrich Klaasen, and Nitish Kumar Reddy holding their middle order together, SRH are expecting another run feast at home.
Lucknow Super Giants are coming into the match with a weakened bowling unit which has further been impacted by an injury to young pacer Mayank Yadav and Akash Deep while they lost Mohsin Khan even before the IPL started.
LSG will be expecting a better effort from the likes of Shardul Thakur, Manimaran Siddharth, Dignesh Rathi, Ravi Bishnoi, Prince Yadav, Shahbaz Ahmed, and Avesh Khan, who has just recovered from an injury.
Yeah, we have a few guys out, no doubt, but I think we have assembled a really solid squad. There is no doubt that in time we will welcome guys back into the team who have a bit of experience with the ball. But we certainly back our [current] bowlers to do the job. I don't see it as a lack of depth.
The Rishabh Pant-led side will be expecting their overseas batters Mitchell Marsh, who is playing purely as a batter, Aiden Markram, Nicholas Pooran, and David Miller will get going in their second match.
LSG will also be wary of the SRH batting might as they are expected to come hard at them in Thursday's encounter. The last time the two teams met, SRH romped to a 10-wicket victory in IPL 2024. Marsh said they expect SRH to come out with all cylinders firing. But he said they have full faith in their bowlers to thwart them.
We know they're going to come hard. I think there are not many T20 teams in the world now that don't go hard from ball one and try to apply as much pressure as they can to a bowling team. So we know we're going to be under pressure at some point tomorrow night.
The most important thing for us as a team is to focus on our strengths and what we are coming here to do and play our brand of cricket. There's no doubt that the Sunrisers have put a lot of teams under pressure, but that's any team these days. It seems 230 is now the new par score on most grounds. We respect that they have got a phenomenal batting line-up with a lot of power, but we're here to focus on our game and hopefully match with them.
Thursday will be another test for both sides and the team that will hold its nerve will win the match.
Probable playing XIs:
Sunrisers Hyderabad: Abhishek Sharma, Travis Head, Ishan Kishan, Nitish Kumar Reddy, Heinrich Klaasen (wk), Abhinav Manohar, Aniket Verma, Pat Cummins (c), Harshal Patel, Mohammed Shami, Adam Zampa.
Lucknow Super Giants: Mitchell Marsh, Aiden Markram, Nicholas Pooran, Rishabh Pant (c & wk), David Miller, Ayush Badoni, Shahbaz Ahmed, Shardul Thakur, Ravi Bishnoi, Manimaran Siddharth, Digvesh Singh.
