Chennai: IPL's best power-hitters Travis Head and Abhishek Sharma will face a very different challenge in wily spin twins Yuzvendra Chahal and Ravichandran Ashwin when Sunrisers Hyderabad take on Rajasthan Royals in a high-octane second Qualifier in Chennai on Friday.
'Travishek' as the duo is affectionately called by the fans have taken power-hitting to a new level. Head (533 runs at 199.62) and Abhishek (470 at 207.04) have hit 72 sixes apart from 96 boundaries between them.
If that's not enough, they have a swashbuckler in Heinrich Klaasen (413 runs at 180), who also has 34 maximums to his credit.
But playing on an Uppal shirtfront that resembled a national highway or at the Kotla or Wankhede is completely from playing at the Chepauk where the strip will be sticky in nature.
The ball stops and stroke-makers do have a tough time when it comes to hitting through the line.
Ashwin, who has played all his cricket at this ground, knows the strip like the back of his hand and his form has improved towards the back-end of the tournament.
With the country's best leg-spinner Chahal for company, Royals would be hoping that Head, Abhishek and Klaasen can be disposed off quickly to gain control of the proceedings.
As for their bowling, the onus would once again be on T Natarajan, who has been SRH's top wicket-taker this season, and playing on his home turf here, he would love to exploit the conditions.
Also, the experienced duo of Bhuvneshwar Kumar and Cummins have a lot to deal with as the former has been wicket-less in his last two games.
SRH's problems lie in not having two quality spinners. Mayank Markande is mediocre at best and Shahbaz Ahmed's primary skill is willow-wielding, not bowling slow left-arm orthodox tweakers.
As for RR, the side finally ended its five-game winless streak, thanks to its all-round show against RCB.
In batting, the top-order displayed some positive signs, especially Yashasvi Jaiswal, and he would love to continue the form ahead of the T20 World Cup in the Americas next month.
However, skipper Sanju Samson will have to do better, given that he hasn't crossed the 20-run mark in the last three contests. Agencies
IPL 2024
Leading run getters:
MAT RUNS HS AVG SR 100 50
1 Virat Kohli 15 741 113* 61.75 154.69 1 5
2 Ruturaj Gaikwad 14 583 108* 53.00 141.16 1 4
3 Riyan Parag 15 567 84* 56.70 151.60 0 4
4 Travis Head 13 533 102 44.41 199.62 1 4
5 Sai Sudharsan 12 527 103 47.90 141.28 1 2
6 Sanju Samson 15 521 86 52.10 155.52 0 5
7 KL Rahul 14 520 82 37.14 136.12 0 4
8 Nicholas Pooran 14 499 75 62.37 178.21 0 3
9 Sunil Narine 14 482 109 37.07 179.85 1 3
10 Abhishek Sharma 14 470 75* 36.15 207.04 0 3
Leading wicket takers:
MAT OV RUNS WKTS 3-FORS AVG ECON
1 Harshal Patel 14 49 477 24 4 19.87 9.73
2 Jasprit Bumrah 13 51.5 336 20 3 16.80 6.48
3 Varun Chakaravarthy14 48 393 20 3 19.65 8.18
4 Arshdeep Singh 14 50.2 505 19 1 26.57 10.03
5 T Natarajan 12 46.2 423 18 2 23.50 9.12
6 Yuzvendra Chahal 14 54 512 18 1 28.44 9.48
7 Tushar Deshpande13 48 424 17 2 24.94 8.83
8 Harshit Rana 12 38.1 359 17 2 21.11 9.40
9 Khaleel Ahmed 14 50 479 17 0 28.17 9.58
10 Mukesh Kumar 10 35.3 368 17 3 21.64 10.36
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