IPL: Bangalore up for duel of the Sun

After a slow start, SRH produced a lion-hearted effort in the second leg to qualify for the play-offs. The two teams had contrasting results in the business end of the double round-robin phase.

While Bangalore suffered four consecutive defeats, Hyderabad registered a hat-trick of wins. The credit for SRH’s success in the past few matches goes to the opening pair of David Warner and Wriddhiman Saha. Such has been Warner and Saha’s performance that Manish Pandey, Kane Williamson, Priyam Garg and Jason Holder have hardly toiled.

On the bowling front, Hyderabad has found its right combination in Sandeep Sharma, Holder, Shahbaz Nadeem, Thangarasu Natarajan and Rashid Khan. SRH’s rival RCB has a lot to ponder over.

Josh Philippe has looked good in patches, but hasn’t been able to convert starts. Devdutt Padikkal has been consistent at the top, but Virat Kohli needs to step up. AB de Villiers should take responsibility for RCB, which also features Chris Morris, Shivam Dube, Washington Sundar and Yuzvendra Chahal.