For the first time this season Chennai Super Kings have travelled with MS Dhoni, though the veteran remains on the sidelines and is not even listed among the Impact substitutes. Ruturaj Gaikwad still sounded relaxed at the toss, noting that the red-soil strip at Uppal “should stay pretty even right through”, so he invited Sunrisers Hyderabad to set a score.
Ishan Kishan, captaining SRH, shrugged happily; he would have batted first anyway. The ground’s recent history backs him up – since the start of last year the average first-innings total here in the IPL is a healthy 198, helped by true bounce.
CSK’s major change is enforced. Khaleel Ahmed, their go-to new-ball left-armer, has a sore side and sits out. Mukesh Choudhary replaces him, looking to swing the new ball into a left-hand-heavy top three of Abhishek Sharma, Travis Head and Kishan. To balance the XI Chennai have also left out Akeal Hosein and handed Matthew Short his club debut; the off-spinner-batter offers a match-up option against those same left-handers and a few boundary-hitting angles of his own.
Sunrisers are likely to reply with their own Impact change once they bowl, bringing in Sri Lanka’s left-arm quick Dilshan Madushanka for extra new-ball pace. If conditions demand something different, seam-bowling all-rounder Harshal Patel and wrist-spinner Harsh Dubey are waiting.
Away from the teams, R Ashwin’s pre-match television slot produced the line that is doing the rounds: “I see Samson captaining CSK at some stage.” The off-spinner was half-joking, half-admiring after Sanju Samson’s prolific T20 World Cup, yet it adds another subplot with the wicketkeeper batting at the top this evening.
Probable XIs
Sunrisers Hyderabad: Abhishek Sharma, Travis Head, Ishan Kishan (capt), Heinrich Klaasen, Salil Arora (wk), Aniket Verma, Nitish Kumar Reddy, Shivang Kumar, Praful Hinge, Sakib Hussain, Eshan Malinga.
Impact options: Dilshan Madushanka, Harshal Patel, Liam Livingstone, R Smaran, Harsh Dubey.
Chennai Super Kings: Sanju Samson (wk), Ruturaj Gaikwad (capt), Sarfaraz Khan, Shivam Dube, Dewald Brevis, Jamie Overton, Matthew Short, Anshul Kambok, Noor Ahmad, Mukesh Choudhary, Gurjapneet Singh.
Impact options: Ayush Mhatre, Prashant Veer, Kartik Sharma, Matt Henry, Ramakrishna Ghosh.
Key numbers
• Only one of SRH’s first four powerplays this season has gone at under nine an over.
• CSK’s seamers, by contrast, have given up just 7.1 an over in the same phase.
Those early six overs, therefore, could define the evening.
First ball is at 19:30 local.
