In its 15 years of existence as world’s best T20 League, the Indian Premier League (IPL) has many youngsters making their mark. It has also seen many one-season wonders, who have shone bright for a few months and then slowly faded away.
Umran Malik, the 22-year-old pacer from Jammu and Kashmir, will be hoping to avoid a similar fate in IPL 2022. Malik was one of the success stories of the UAE leg of IPL 2021 and his superb performance resulted in him being picked as a net bowler for the Indian team for the T20 World Cup. He was also one of the players that two-time IPL winners Sunrisers Hyderabad had retained for IPL 2022.
Malik will be in the spotlight on Tuesday when Sunrisers Hyderabad take on Rajasthan Royals in their first match of the IPL 2022 at the Maharashtra Cricket Association (MCA) Stadium in Pune. This will be the first chance for Malik to prove that his performance in UAE was no flash in the pan and that he is capable of building on that to put forth his claim for a place in the national team. Though Malik will have to do a lot more than what he did in IPL 2021 (11 wickets in eight matches), the youngster from J&K has shown a lot of promise.
The SRH think tank will also be closely monitoring skipper Kane Williamson, who has been out of action since last year`s T20 World Cup. Having taken over the captaincy midway through last year, Williamson will be looking to play his first full season as captain. Coming into the IPL rested and recuperated, Williamson will bring in some new ideas and experience as international captain to SRH, which the franchise will hope change their fortunes after the indifferent season in 2021.
The Rajasthan Royals, winner of the inaugural edition of the IPL in 2008, will be looking to make a winning start. They have major changes in their personnel and will be banking on their superb bowling unit that has the likes of Trent Boult, Prasidh Krishna, who is likely to partner Boult in the powerplay, R Ashwin and Yuzvendra Chahal.
Match Details
Sunrisers Hyderabad vs Rajathan Royals, Match No. 5
Venue: MCA Stadium, Pune
Date & Time: March 29th at 7:30 PM IST
Live Streaming: Star Sports Network, Star Gold and Disney+Hotstar
SRH vs RR Dream 11 Prediction
Wicketkeeper: Jos Buttler, Sanju Samson, Nicholas Pooran
Batters: Kane Williamson, Rassie van der Dussen, Devdutt Padikkal
All-rounders: Aiden Markram, Washington Sundar
Bowlers: Yuzvendra Chahal, T. Natarajan, Umran Malik
Captain: Kane Williamson
Vice-Captain: Devdutt Padikkal
SRH vs RR Probable Playing XI
Sunrisers Hyderabad: Rahul Tripathi, Aiden Markram, Kane Williamson (c), Nicholas Pooran (wk), Abdul Samad, Abhishek Sharma, Washington Sundar, Marco Jansen, Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Umran Malik, T Natarajan
Rajasthan Royals: Jos Buttler, Devdutt Padikkal, Yashasvi Jaiswal, Sanju Samson (c), Shimron Hetmyer, Rassie van der Dussen / Daryl Mitchell, Riyan Parag / Navdeep Saini, Ravichandran Ashwin, Yuzvendra Chahal, Prasidh Krishna, Trent Boult
