Can Sunrisers Hyderabad sort out their middle-order issues?
Both teams are coming off losses in their most recent match, and both have six points from five games so far
Big picture
Previous meeting
Likely XIs
Strategy punt
- R Ashwin likes bowling in the Powerplay, especially to left-handers. This is unlikely to change despite David Warner's excellent record in Powerplays against spin - only one dismissal since 2016. However, if he's paired with Sam Curran with the new ball, they could cause trouble to both openers. Warner averages 30 - his lowest - and has been out five times to left-arm seamers in the phase, while Bairstow has only 39 runs off 36 balls against spin.
- Manish Pandey is among the highest-paid players at Sunrisers and has been given a long rope by the management, as one of their elite domestic players. But his form has been on the decline since the start of 2018 and they could be well-served by giving him some time off.
- Rashid Khan has taken four wickets in five games, a below-par strike-rate for him. Sunrisers could get more wickets from him by leaving some of his overs for the slog overs where batsmen don't have the luxury of playing him out. All his wickets this season have come in the 16-20 overs phase.
Stats that matter
- Chris Gayle has fallen four times in eight innings to Sandeep Sharma and has only managed a strike rate of 107.4 against the swing bowler.
- Sunrisers' middle order (4-6) has contributed less than half the runs as the top order (1-3) since the start of IPL 2018; that's 26.4% in comparison to 60.52%.
- Kings XI have been the quickest-scoring team in the middle overs this season - they strike at 9.1 per over between overs 7 and 15, whereas Sunrisers score at 8.2. Both of them have scored at 9.4 in the slog overs, but Sunrisers have been far ahead of Kings XI's 7.4 in the Powerplay with 9.4.
- For batsmen facing at least 250 balls, Manish Pandey has the worst average - 22.78 - and boundary rate - 10.3 balls per boundary - since IPL 2018.
Varun Shetty is a sub-editor at ESPNcricinfo