Sunrisers eager to turn it around

Chennai, April 20: Bruised and battered after suffering a hat-trick of defeats, a desperate Sunrisers Hyderabad would seek inspiration from skipper David Warner to arrest any further slide when they take on Punjab Kings in an IPL match here on Wednesday.

SRH couldn’t have asked for a worse start to the season as they slumped to three straight defeats, and in all occasions while chasing. Punjab are a tad better than SRH, having registered one win out of three games to be placed at seventh in the standings, a rung above their Wednesday’s opponents.

Chasing has been Sunrisers’ achilles’ heel so far in the league. They failed to get past a low score against Mumbai Indians in their last match.

SRH have been hit hard by the lack of depth in their playing XI and belowpar Indian bench strength.

In these circumstances, the onus rests on Warner to do some magic and inspire his side to bounce back in the tournament.

A big innings is due from the SRH captain as he has scored just 93 runs from the three matches he has played so far with the 54 against Royals Challengers Bangalore being the highest. He also needs some serious introspection before deciding his playing XI on Wednesday.

Warner and Rashid Khan are certainties in the foreign players’ slots, but the absence of Kane Williamson has been badly

FOR THE RECORD

KL Rahul who has scored 4,999 runs at an average of 42 in 142 innings needs just one run to become the 11th Indian and 70th batsman overall to score 5,000 runs in T20.

Manish Pandey who has hit 95 fours in 42 innings needs just five more to become the fourth batsman to complete a century of fours for Sunrisers in IPL.

LAST YEAR’S MATCHES

Sunrisers beat Punjab by 69 runs at Dubai.

Punjab beat Sunrisers by 12 runs at Dubai.

STATS: S. PERVEZ QAISER

felt as he can provide solidity to the middle-order, especially after they faltered in three consecutive chases. Going by Wridhhiman Saha’s poor form, Jonny Bairstow is the frontrunner for the wicket-keeper’s position.

But what would be troubling Warner most is the lack of depth in the team’s local batting resources.

It’s high time the likes of Manish Pandey, Vijay Shankar, Abhishek Sharma and Abdul Samad pulled up their socks.