Mullanpur (Punjab), April 9: Winning the toss, hosts Punjab Kings (PBKS) elected to field first against visitors Sunrisers Hyderabad (SRH) in the 23rd match of the IPL 2024, here on Tuesday.
Both teams have played four matches each so far and have also won a couple of games in Indian Premier League (IPL) 2024. They appear to be almost equally balanced too.
Punjab have won their first match against Delhi Capitals at their new home ground, here. But the Tuesday class with SRH would be the first evening match at the venue. Because Punjab's first match against Delhi at this venue, was an afternoon battle.
Interestingly, PBKS skipper Shikhar Dhawan and seasoned wicket-keeper batter Jonny Bairstow, were earlier part of the Hyderabad franchise for a couple of seasons. Dhawan has even led SRH.
Hyderabad and Punjab have faced each other in 21 matches in IPL. Out of those 21 games, Hyderabad have won 14, whereas Punjab emerged victorious on 7 occasions.
Despite the result, the SRH-PBKS match is expected to be a thrilling contest between the two sides, who are almost equally balanced. Also, both teams would be keen to get out of the mid-table jam.
Squads:
Sunrisers Hyderabad XI: Pat Cummins (Captain), Travis Head, Abhishek Sharma, Aiden Markram, Heinrich Klaasen (wicket-keeper), Shahbaz Ahmed, Nitish Kumar Reddy, Abdul Samad, Bhuvneshwar Kumar, T Natarajan, Jaydev Unadkat.
SRH Bench: Umran Malik, Mayank Markande, Washington Sundar, Glenn Phillips, Rahul Tripathi.
