As was expected before the tournament began, Mumbai Indians continue to maintain their supremacy at the points table with six points in five matches. They reclaimed their supremacy with a solid win over Sunrisers Hyderabad in their previous match. With that defeat, Sunrisers Hyderabad dropped to the seventh spot on the points table and would need to win the upcoming match to avoid further sliding.
Up next in the tournament, the Sunriers are set to meet Kings XI Punjab, who haven’t had a good tournament either. In fact, Kings XI Punjab have done worse than Sunrisers Hyderabad, and are placed at the bottom of the ladder. Although there are still a good number of matches to go, a loss here will push the losing team a bit further from the playoffs. Both teams will be desperate to get back to the winning ways and we expect them both to come hard at each other. A cracker of the contest is certainly on the cards.
Match: 22
Day: Thursday
Date: 8th October 2020
Venue: Dubai International Cricket Stadium, Dubai, UAE
Time: 7:30 PM (IST)
Pitch and Conditions:
The match will be played on the Dubai Cricket Ground, Dubai. Dubai has always been a bat first wicket but in the last game, CSK showed that it’s not impossible to chase on this ground. Still, team batting first has a huge advantage on this ground. A score of 180 will be a decent score. The weather as usual will be dry and humid.
TOSS:
Teams batting first have won 8 out of the 9 matches played at Dubai and we expect both captains to bat first if they win the toss.
Head to Head Stats:
Matches Played: 14 | SRH Won: 10 | KXIP Won: 4 | NR: 1
SRH Expected Playing XI:
David Warner(c), Jonny Bairstow(w), Manish Pandey, Kane Williamson, Priyam Garg, Abhishek Sharma, Abdul Samad, Rashid Khan, Sandeep Sharma, Siddarth Kaul, T Natarajan
KXIP Expected Playing XI:
KL Rahul(w/c), Mayank Agarwal, Mandeep Singh, Nicholas Pooran, Glenn Maxwell, Sarfaraz Khan, Chris Jordan/Chris Gayle, Murugan Ashwin, Ravi Bishnoi, Mohammed Shami, Sheldon Cottrell
SRH vs KXIP Match Prediction:
Both sides will be under the pump to get back to winning ways and the team that handles the pressure better is more likely to emerge on top in the upcoming match. While the injury to Bhuvneshwar Kumar is a massive setback for the Sunrisers, they still seem to be a pretty settled unit. On the other hand, Kings XI Punjab will need to get their bowling attack right as quickly as possible.
We make our predictions after calculating each and every aspect of the match that is why we are the best tipper of IPL. Both sides depend heavily on their top-four, but with a better bowling unit, Sunrisers Hyderabad appears to be an overall better team. We expect this match to go down to the wire, but considering that Sunrisers Hyderabad are a more settled team and have done better than Kings XI Punjab in their recent matches, the Sunrisers are the favorites to prevail in this all-important encounter on Thursday.
Sunrisers Hyderabad have a settled combination whereas Kings XI Punjab are still searching for their correct combination. Kings XI Punjab’s bowling has performed terribly in the last few matches and Punjab’s 10-wicket defeat against Chennai Super Kings is evidence of that. Kings XI Punjab are a little too over-reliant on their opening pair and their middle-order hasn’t really been tested yet. For more and assured free IPL betting tips keep visiting our website throughout the IPL 2020.