 "Sunrisers Hyderabad captain Pat Cummins flips the coin while his Punjab Kings counterpart Jitender Sharma calls during the toss in Match 69 of IPL 2024 in Hyderabad. BCCI")
Sunrisers Hyderabad vs Punjab Kings, IPL 2024 Match 69 TOSS: Punjab Kings won the toss, and stand-in skipper Jitesh Sharma opted to bat against Sunrisers Hyderabad in Hyderabad on Sunday.
With PBKS’s English recruits Sam Curran, Jonny Bairstow and Liam Livingstone flying back home for the T20I series against Pakistan that starts in three days’ time, South Africa’s Rilee Rossouw is the only overseas player in the PBKS XI for their final game of the season.
SRH captain Pat Cummins, on the other hand, announced just one change, with Rahul Tripathi returning to the XI.
Sunrisers Hyderabad vs Punjab Kings, IPL 2024 Match 69 preview: Sunrisers Hyderabad (SRH) will be hoping to boost their chances of a top-two finish at the end of the league stage of the ongoing Indian Premier League (IPL) while Punjab Kings will be hoping to sign off with a victory when the two sides lock horns at Hyderabad’s Rajiv Gandhi International Stadium on Sunday.
SRH had thrashed Lucknow Super Giants (LSG) by 10 wickets last week, with openers Travis Head and Abhishek Sharma chasing down a target of 167 in less than 10 overs to put the ‘Orange Army’ on the brink of qualification for the playoffs. They ultimately sealed their place in the top four after their subsequent match, against Gujarat Titans at home, was washed out.
They currently sit at the third spot with 15 points and a victory on Sunday should take them to the second spot behind Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR). However, for them to finish at the second spot and have two shots at reaching the final, they’ll have to hope KKR either defeat Rajasthan Royals in the second game of the Sunday double-header or the match ends in a washout, in which case SRH will finish ahead due to their superior Net Run Rate (NRR).
Impact Shorts
More ShortsPBKS, meanwhile, have already been eliminated from the playoffs race and currently sit at the ninth spot with 10 points to their name, thus extending their decade-long run of failing to reach the playoffs. The Kings will be playing for pride on Sunday and will be hoping to sign off with a victory.
A victory over the Sunrisers on Sunday will help the Kings finish at the eighth spot as they’ll go level with Gujarat Titans on 12 points, and finish ahead of them on the basis of NRR.
Teams:
Sunrisers Hyderabad: Abhishek Sharma, Nitish Reddy, Rahul Tripathi, Heinrich Klaasen (wk), Abdul Samad, Shahbaz Ahmed, Sanvir Singh, Pat Cummins(c), Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Vijayakanth Viyaskanth, T Natarajan
Punjab Kings: Prabhsimran Singh, Atharva Taide, Rilee Rossouw, Shashank Singh, Jitesh Sharma (wk/c), Ashutosh Sharma, Shivam Singh, Harpreet Brar, Rishi Dhawan, Harshal Patel, Rahul Chahar