Punjab kings take on Sunrisers Hyderabad in today’s double header, preview, predictions:

In the battle of bottoms Punjab Kings will take on Sunrisers Hyderabad today in the double header match today, 25 September.

In the outskirts of Sharjah, at Sharjah Cricket Stadium, both teams will find their first win in the second half of the Vivo IPL 2021. Both the teams are placed in the bottom of the points table, Sunrisers Hyderabad 2 points, Punjab Kins 4 points.

The only win for Sunrisers in this IPL so far came against the Kings and they will be hoping to emulate the clinical fashion in which they secured that victory in a bid to galvanise their campaign. For the Kings, who have made it a habit to lose games from winning positions, there were plenty of things that they did right in the last game, and they'll only be hoping that they don't run out of fuel again.

Sunrisers and the Kings will be playing their first game in Sharjah, where both sides won two out of the three games they played at this venue last year. Both the teams will home that they would recreate the history again.

Pitch Report: The IPL matches early in the 2020 season in Sharjah were loaded heavily in favour of the batsmen, with the short boundaries and flat pitches paving way for 200-plus totals with regularity, but as the season wore on the pitches slowed down. Considering that the SRH-PBKS match will only be the second game at this venue in the UAE leg of IPL 2021, the teams can gear up for a high-scoring contest.

T Natarajan tested positive for COVID-19 before Sunrisers' last game and went into isolation along with Vijay Shankar who was a close contact. Umran Malik, a right-arm pacer from Jammu & Kashmir, joined the team as a short-term replacement for Natarajan. While the Kings do not have any current injury or availability issues in their line-up.

Predicted Playing XI:

Sunrisers Hyderabad: David Warner, Wriddhiman Saha (wk), Kane Williamson (c), Manish Pandey, Kedar Jadhav, Jason Holder, Abdul Samad, Rashid Khan, Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Sandeep Sharma, Khaleel Ahmed.

Punjab Kings: KL Rahul (c & wk), Mayank Agarwal, Aiden Markram, Nicholas Pooran, Deepak Hooda, Fabian Allen, Chris Jordan, Harpreet Brar, Arshdeep Singh, Mohammed Shami, Ravi Bishnoi.