Bowlers have to rise to the occasion on a batting beauty

 

MI's Hardik Pandya and Kieron Pollard during a practice session on the eve of the match against Sunrisers. 

 

 Indian Premier League — 2016

It will be a clash between two teams that have rediscovered the winning ways after early blues when Sunrisers Hyderabad takes on Mumbai Indians at the Dr.Y.S. Rajasekhara Reddy ACA-VDCA Stadium in the 4 p.m. game here on Sunday.

But, the focus will be on two outstanding openers and captains — Rohit Sharma of Mumbai (383 runs) and David Warner of Sunrisers (410).

With five half-centuries each so far in this edition, both these gifted stroke-makers have virtually set the tempo, especially when chasing targets for their respective teams. In an edition where it has been the openers who have been the dominant contributors to their teams’ wins, both Rohit and Warner have been exceptional, especially in chasing down targets.

Flat track

So, it will be interesting to see how they perform when setting a defendable target on what appears to be a typical Vizag, flat batting track.

The presence of a couple of game-changers notwithstanding — Mumbai having the likes of Jos Buttler and Kieron Pollard and Sunrisers Kane Williamson asnd Eoin Morgan — the teams need Rohit and Warner to fire at the top.

For, even in Sunrisers’ win over Gujarat Lions chasing a modest 127 on Friday night in Hyderabad, once Warner fell cheaply, the others, barring Shikhar Dhawan, wobbled on a slightly bowler-friendly pitch. This is why Warner insists that either he or Shikhar should bat through the innings.

In bowling, Mumbai has the firepower in the form of fast bowlers — Tim Southee, Mitchell McClenaghan (joint leading wicket-taker with 13 wickets along with Andre Russell of KKR) and Jaspreet Bumrah and the old fox Harbhajan Singh, though not at his wicket-taking best but still effective enough to stem the run-flow in the middle overs.

In contrast, Sunrisers has perhaps the most varied and consistent bowling attack in this edition as swing merchant Bhuvneshwar Kumar seems to be stepping into his zone with each game in the company of the experienced left-armers Ashish Nehra and Barinder Sran. And, another left-armer, Bangladeshi Mustafizur Rahman can always be looked up to throttle the best of batsmen with his accuracy and deadly blend of off-cutters and yorkers.

In fact, Bhuvneshwar (12) and Mustafizur (11) have not only been the main wicket-takers but also very difficult to score off in the PowerPlays and death overs.

And, tomorrow’s match (Sunrisers has 10 points from eight games and Mumbai same from nine) might well provide indications as to how well the bowlers perform on an expected batting beauty which in a way should also quench the thirst of this cricket-crazy Port City in the scorching heat.