New Delhi: Sunrisers Hyderabad have already qualified for the knockouts but they would not want to end their Indian Premier League (IPL) group stage campaign with three defeats on the trot and will look for a win against Kolkata Knight Riders in Hyderabad on Saturday.
SRH head into this match on a two-match losing streak and would like to make amends before the table-toppers head into the play-offs, starting next week. While on the other hand, Kolkata have everything to play for as a win in this clash will all but seal their place in the final four.
And the onus of achieving the two teams' respective targets lie with the two skipper, who have led from the front and shown the way for others to follow right through the course of the season. Kane Williamson (SRH) and Dinesh Karthik (KKR) are IPL debutants as far as captaincy is concerned, but the way the duo have performed, it seems like they were born into this role.
Williamson and Karthik are the leading run-getters for their respective teams this season. Williamson is currently holds the orange cap with 625 runs whereas Karthik has scored 412 runs this season.
Meanwhile, Williamson has scored ten 30+ scores this season out of which he has converted 8 of them in fifties. Also, the Kiwi is merely one half-century behind David Warner as the player to have scored the most number of fifties in a single season.
Also, Williamson has also joined Virat Kohli to score four consecutive fifties in the IPL. Only Virender Sehwag and Jos Buttler have a better record with 5 consecutive fifties to their respective names.
While on the other hand, Dinesh Karthik has scored just one fifty this season which came against KXIP in Indore. And out of his seven 30+ scores this season, he has converted to fifty in only one inning. However, Karthik is the leading run-getter among batsmen to bat at number 5, amongst the players who have played minimum 5 matches.
Therefore, expect sparks to fly when these two stalwarts of the game come face-to-face in this crunch clash at the home of the table-topper. And considering the kind of form these two are in with the bat, one would be forgiven to think that the winner of this particular match will be decided based on which team's leader does better than the other.
IPL 2018 POINTS TABLE
Team
Mat
Won
Lost
Tied
NR
Pts
NRR
SRH
13
9
4
0
0
18
+0.319
CSK
12
8
4
0
0
16
+0.383
KKR
13
7
6
0
0
14
-0.091
MI
13
6
7
0
0
12
+0.384
RCB
13
6
7
0
0
12
+0.264
RR
13
6
7
0
0
12
-0.403
KXIP
13
6
7
0
0
12
-0.490
DD
12
3
9
0
0
6
-0.478
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