27 April,2022 07:35 AM IST | Mumbai | Harit Joshi
Lockie Ferguson and Umran Malik
Batsmen beware! That's the message from the bowlers in tonight's clash between Sunrisers Hyderabad and Gujarat Titans at the Wankhede Stadium.
Both teams boast of incredible bowling line-ups, which will gun to make life miserable for the batsmen. These are arguably the two best bowling line-ups one can witness this IPL.
Gujarat Titans have pacers Lockie Ferguson, Mohammed Shami, Alzarri Joseph and leggie Rashid Khan while Sunrisers Hyderabad have in their line-up Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Umran Malik, Marco Jansen and T Natarajan.
It is no surprise that these two teams are neck-to-neck as both boast of ruling the numbers game. Hardik Pandya's brigade is the best outfit when it comes to death bowling with an 8.50 run-rate (Overs No 16 to 20 until Monday's game). However, Kane Williamson's boys have 10.13.
SRH rule the charts as far as best bowling averages are concerned (20.69), while GT is second best with 25.79. Hyderabad have the best economy rate (7.90) and best strike rate (15.7) as compared to GT's 8.15 and 18.9. These impressive numbers can send shivers down any batting line-up's spine. Their bowling strength came to the fore when Sunrisers Hyderabad bundled out Royal Challengers Bangalore for a meagre 68 in their last game at Brabourne Stadium on Saturday.
Earlier in the day, Gujarat Titans successfully defended 156-9 against Kolkata Knight Riders in their last outing at the DY Patil Stadium.
If SRH's Umran is the talk of the town for his raw pace in this IPL, GT's New Zealand pacer Ferguson has also impressed with express pace.
Natarajan, who went as a net bowler to Australia before making his debut in all three formats on the 2020-21 tour, has been one of the best death bowlers of the IPL; picking up six wickets bowling at the top and in the death.
SRH's batting revolves a lot around skipper Williamson, and Pandya would surely turn to Shami, who has dismissed the Kiwi great four times in 10 T20 innings. GT have suffered just one defeat, which came against Sunrisers Hyderabad when they clashed on April 11 at the DY Patil Stadium. The GT bowlers were unable to penetrative as SRH won by eight wickets, chasing a target of 163. Come to think of it, today is Gujarat's chance to settle scores with Hyderabad.
