SRH face KKR in battle of survival

Pune, May 13: Smarting from four straight losses, Sunrisers Hyderabad will need to sort out their bowling issues when they face an inconsistent Kolkata Knight Riders, as both the teams look to stay afloat in the IPL play-offs race here on Saturday.

A series of losses after a five-match winning streak has dragged SRH down to the sixth spot with 10 points and they would need to win all their remaining three games to harbour any hopes of making it to the play-offs.

KKR, however, are on the brink of elimination and their woes were compounded with the ruling out of pace spearhead Pat Cummins owing to a hip injury.

Shreyas Iyer’s men have just two more matches to go and wins in both will only take them to 14 points, which might not be enough with Rajasthan Royals and Royal Challengers Bangalore already sitting pretty in the top four with 14 points from 12 games.

One of the main reasons behind SRH’s awful run in the last few games is injuries to frontline bowlers — Washington Sundar and T Natarajan — and the sudden loss of form of speedster Umran Malik.

It culminated in SRH conceding more than 190 plus runs in each last four games.

While Sundar had injured his bowling hand again, death over specialist Natarajan had picked up a niggle. But coach Tom Moody was hopeful of the duo’s return against KKR.

Malik, who looked fast and furious in the earlier games clocking 150kmph consistently, has gone wicket-less and conceded too many runs in the last few matches and his form will be key for SRH.

In batting, SRH have the quality but skipper Kane Williamson will have to take more responsibility as he has just one fifty to show for this season. Although Abhishek Sharma has given them solid starts, the youngster has not been able to anchor the innings.