IPL 2025: High-flying Punjab hold edge over bottom-placed Snurisers Hyderabad

Punjab Kings are on a high with three wins in four outings and bottom-placed Sunrisers Hyderabad do not look like they will be able to stop them on Saturday at the Rajiv Gandhi International Stadium here. Much water has flowed since last year’s edition where PBKS finished ninth. A rejuvenated PBKS seem to be a different team under new coach Ricky Ponting and captain Shreyas Iyer.

On the other hand, SRH have slipped badly. They have won only one game and lost four. Low in confidence, the Pat Cummins-led outfit needs a miracle to claw back into the top half of the table. SRH’s Plan A of batting aggressively has failed and they need to come up with revised tactics, including a possible reshuffle of their batting order. Their most feared batters — Travis Head, Abhisekh Sharma, Ishan Kishan, Heinrich Klaasen and Nitish Reddy — have suddenly lost that magical touch.

Coach Daniel Vettori admitted that his batters need to dominate the powerplay. “We don’t necessarily have to get 270-280 all the time. Our batsmen need to dominate the powerplay and set it up for our middle-order batsmen, and then put a score on the board for our bowlers to defend. That’s normally when we’re at our best,” said Vettori.