Former Indian national cricket team batsman Wasim Jaffer has exposed the critical flaws of Sunrisers Hyderabad (SRH) and Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) ahead of their Indian Premier League 2024 (IPL 2024) Qualifier 1 clash ).
The high-voltage clash between the former IPL champions will take place on Tuesday, May 21, at the Narendra Modi Stadium in Ahmedabad. It is not a do-or-die game for KKR and SRH as the losing team will have one more chance to qualify for the finals. However, neither team wants to be in that situation as a loss would put pressure on them.
Kolkata Knight Riders will enter the match with a dominant record of 17-9 against Sunrisers Hyderabad and they will be eager to extend it. However, what goes against KKR is that they have not played a match since May 11 as their last two matches against Gujarat Titans and Rajasthan Royals were canceled due to rain.
Talking about Sunrisers Hyderabad, they chased a total of 215 in their previous match against Punjab Kings to further establish their dominance with the bat in IPL 2024. To win the match against KKR, SRH batsmen will once again need to put up a big punctuation. on the board because the team’s bowling unit has leaked many runs throughout the competition.
Before the delightful match, Wasim Jaffer previewed the clash during an interaction with ESPNcricinfo and highlighted the major flaws of both the teams. Wasim Jaffer opined that the bowling unit is SRH’s biggest weakness and the absence of Jaydev Unadkat makes things difficult for them. He suggested that the team include Unadkat in the playing XI replacing him with Sanvir Singh, who has not been well utilized by the team.
“I feel dawns [Hyderabad] They will have to add a fast bowler to their bowling list. In his previous one, Shahbaz Ahmed and Nitish Reddy turned out to be expensive. Sanvir is not used much as a batsman. So, I think they should find a place to [Jaydev] Unadkat. The pitching will be good (for batting), you need bowling options. This is something SRH can do in Qualifier 1,” Jaffer told ESPNCricinfo.
Rahmanullah Gurbaz will be a little rusty – Wasim Jaffer
The legendary domestic cricket batsman further shifted his focus towards Kolkata Knight Riders and said the absence of explosive opening batsman Phil Salt would hurt the team a lot.
Notably, Phil Salt is part of the England contingent that left IPL 2024 midway for international duties as the Three Lions will play a home series against the Pakistan National Cricket Team ahead of the Men’s T20 World Cup in the ICC 2024.
Phil Salt will most likely be replaced at the top of the Kolkata Knight Riders order by Afghan star Rahmanullah Gurbaz, who did a good job for the team last year.
According to Wasim Jaffer, Rahmanullah Gurbaz does not have enough playing time under his belt and would be rusty in the playoffs, which is not good news for the two-time IPL champions.
“Rahmanullah Gurbaz will be a bit rusty. He will miss playing time. A couple of innings would have been better for Gurbaz before the playoffs. He hasn’t played for a long time and will replace the in-form Phil Salt as the wicketkeeper-batsman and the batsmen of the Knight Riders also haven’t played for almost 10 days,” Jaffer added.
