SRH vs RR: Not Pat Cummins! Aakash Chopra names a player without whom SRH 'can't progress'
Published - 24 May 2024, 06:27 PM | Updated - 24 May 2024, 06:33 PM
Table of Contents
Travis Head is the most important player for Sunrisers Hyderabad if they are to beat Rajasthan Royals and make it to the final against KKR, feels Aakash Chopra.
SRH takes on Rajasthan Royals in Qualifier 2 in Chennai on Friday, May 24. Whoever wins the match will play KKR in the final also in Chennai on May 26.
Previewing Qualifier 2 on his YouTube channel, Aakash Chopra said that Travis Head has to fire with the bat if SRH are looking to win this game against Rajasthan Royals.
Travis Head Has To Fire Against RR: Aakash Chopra
"Their strength is their two openers. If these two openers start firing, no one is able to stop them. They turn the match in their favor in the first eight to 10 overs. Travis Head has gone down a little, gotten out two successive times, but you expect him to play well. So the first player is Travis Head," Chopra said.
"Travis Head's numbers batting first are very good. Trent Boult hasn't troubled him that much, although he could have got out last time. Riyan Parag dropped a catch. So they might try to trap Travis Head in the same way once again. However, he scored a fifty against this team last time. This team cannot progress without Travis Head scoring runs," he further added.
Head was Chopra's first player to watch out for the Sunrisers Hyderabad. The Aussie opener has scored 533 runs at a strike rate of almost 200 for the Orange Army. He has had two back-to-back failures in the last two games.
Abhishek Sharma is Chopra's second player to watch out for. He scored 170 runs in 14 games this season at a strike rate of 207.
"My second player is Abhishek Sharma because he is batting very well. If Travis Head is scoring runs in the first innings, Abhishek Sharma is scoring runs in the second innings. If he keeps batting like this, you never know, he might play for India soon. Times are changing, the Indian selectors have already started focusing on the next generation," Chopra said on the young Indian batter.
The former Indian opener further said that SRH batters might be hard to stop if they get on a roll citing the example of the young all-rounder Nitish Kumar Reddy and Heinrich Klaasen.
"The thing that goes in favor of this team is that, because of the type of cricket they have played, if they get on a roll, it's very difficult to bring them down. Rahul Tripathi is batting well now. Nitish Reddy plays very well against spin, scored 70-odd runs against this team last time, and hit massive sixes," he said.
"After that, they have Heinrich Klaasen. So Travis Head and Abhishek Sharma, the two openers, then Heinrich Klaasen and two Indians in the middle. This is both a strength and a weakness because only Abdul Samad and Shahbaz Ahmed are left after that. So they are seen slightly stumbling there," he said on Klaasen.
The former Indian opener concluded by saying that SRH can include Mayank Markande in place of Vijaykanth Vyaskanth allowing either Glenn Phillips or Aiden Markram to be a part of the playing XI in Qualifier 2.
Also Read: SRH vs RR Live Score and Updates: Sunrisers Hyderabad (Team News)
