David Warner and Eoin Morgan
Sunrisers Hyderabad captain David Warner opted to chase at the Sheikh Zayed Stadium in Abu Dhabi on Sunday in the IPL 2020 match against Kolkata Knight Riders. Both sides made two changes to their side.
"We'll have a bowl. The wickets have been challenging in Dubai compared to this one. Two changes for us - Thampi replaces Khaleel, we have left out a spinner," said Warner.
KKR, meanwhile, brought in leggie Kuldeep Yadav and pacer Lockie Ferguson in place of Chris Green and Prasidh Krishna.
There is a reason why KKR brought back Kuldeep into the lineup. SRH's two main top-order batters struggle against leg-spin deliveries - Kane Williamson averages 24.5 against Chinaman in IPL while Jonny Bairstow has been dismissed seven times at 30.7 against leggies. And Kuldeep has taken 10 wickets against SRH, the most he has against any IPL opponent, at 7.78 runs per over.
Sunil Narine has once again been left out despite IPL clearing his bowling action.
"We will have to improve our basics better, we didn't do that against MI in our last match. Two changes for us - Kuldeep and Lockie in, for Green and Prasidh. We don't want to rush Sunil back, we'll give him some time," said Morgan.
Sunrisers Hyderabad (Playing XI): David Warner(c), Jonny Bairstow(w), Manish Pandey, Kane Williamson, Priyam Garg, Vijay Shankar, Abdul Samad, Rashid Khan, Sandeep Sharma, T Natarajan, Basil Thampi
Kolkata Knight Riders (Playing XI): Rahul Tripathi, Shubman Gill, Nitish Rana, Dinesh Karthik(w), Eoin Morgan(c), Andre Russell, Pat Cummins, Shivam Mavi, Kuldeep Yadav, Lockie Ferguson, Varun Chakravarthy
