Time for Sunrisers to rise to the occasion

Tuesday, April 21, 2015
Start time 1600 local (1030 GMT)

Before the start of the season, Sunrisers Hyderabad seemed to have stitched together a fairly good-looking squad on paper, with excellent overseas additions in Kane Williamson, Trent Boult, Ravi Bopara and Eoin Morgan adding to their core of David Warner, Shikhar Dhawan and Dale Steyn. Trouble is, you can only play four overseas players at the same time, and Sunrisers have struggled to find their best eleven.

In that struggle they have lost three of their first four games, while winning the other convincingly enough - against Royal Challengers Bangalore - to suggest there's definite potential for improvement. But potential only means so much, and they will have to start stringing together actual performances right away, starting with their home game against Kolkata Knight Riders, to climb out of the crowded bottom of the table.

It won't be easy. Knight Riders' win over Delhi Daredevils on Monday was a performance that distilled their strengths so clinically - expert constriction with the ball, despite an uncharacteristically expensive spell from Sunil Narine, followed by a sensibly constructed chase - it was a little boring to watch. Knight Riders won't mind being called boring if they keep playing like that, though. They know their strengths, they know their best eleven, and pride themselves on the standards they set. Unless they have a rare bad day, Sunrisers will have to be at or close to their best to beat them.

Eoin Morgan came into the IPL on the back of perhaps the worst form slump of his career, and came into the Sunrisers XI in place of a massive name in Kane Williamson. He's there for a reason - Williamson fits best in the top three, where Sunrisers have a decent number of options, while Morgan is a number five or six, where they have a hole to fill - but he hasn't really convinced in his two innings so far. A match against his old team might be a good starting point for him to turn his form around.

After a seemingly never-ending streak of 40-plus scores last season, Robin Uthappa's form has dipped, and he's made scores of 9, 35, 13 and 13 this season. He's played some sparkling shots in the brief time he's spent in the middle, suggesting he isn't in particularly bad touch, and his run of scores hasn't really affected Knight Riders' performances too much, but he will certainly want to contribute more to their cause.