Sunrisers Hyderabad vs Kolkata Knight Riders - IPL 2022 Match 25: Who Will Win?

Sunrisers Hyderabad Team Preview

Having lost their opening two matches, the Sunrisers have fought their way back in the IPL 2022 with back-to-back wins against Chennai Super Kings and Gujarat Titans, both by 8 wickets. They currently have four points, which is points behind the five joint leaders. As we near the end of the third week of the tournament, we should start to see a further separation of the teams on the leaderboard. The Sunrisers have not yet had to defend a total in their four games played, so it will be interesting to see how they fair if the Kolkata Knight Riders win the toss.

Kane Williamson’s side seem to have turned a corner after posting poor batting totals in their first two matches (149/7 and 157/9). They reached decent totals for the loss of only 2 wickets in their two consecutive winning matches. Williamson and Abhishek Sharma are both in decent form with the bat and this opening pair have put on 181 runs together in the four games played at an average of 45.25 runs. Rahul Tripathi and Nicholas Pooran have provided decent though not outstanding returns too. With a negative Run Rate (-0.501), they will certainly be looking to move into a positive run rate territory seeing how congested the top of the table is, and the run rate is likely to play a deciding factor in the final shake-up.

A big blow to maintaining their winning form is the loss of Washington Sundar who sustained a hand injury against the Gujarat Titans. The Sunrisers head coach Tom Moody revealed that Washington tore the webbing in his right hand between his thumb and first finger’ which is expected to take a week or so to heal. He will likely miss at least two games, so we could potentially see his return in Match 40 when the Sunrisers play the Gujarat Titans. The spin-bowling all-rounder will be badly missed after picking up 4 wickets in his last three games with an economy rate of under 6.00, and his handy supporting lower order batting contribution of 58 runs in 2 innings.

Despite their first two match losses at the start of the tournament, the Sunrisers seem to have upped their game as their two consecutive wins were achieved with identical 8.77 run rates. This is perhaps a sign that they are fast learners, and Match 25 will give us some indication of the shape of their campaign to come with two thirds of matches yet to be played.

Kolkata Knight Riders Team Preview

Last season’s runners-up have begun their campaign well with three out of five victories. They celebrated a huge victory over defending champions Chennai Super Kings in their first game, which would of course be moral boosting, but come into this game against the Sunrisers following a 44 run defeat to the Delhi Capitals.

Although considered somewhat average in their batting line-up, the fireworks of Pat Cummings’s record equalling fastest IPL 50 score in Match 14 is still on everyone’s lips. Can he steal the show this time with another sterling performance? In these short T20 matches, one performance like this is enough to make or break an IPL prediction. Skipper Shreyas Iyer scored 54 runs from 33 balls in the last match, and Nitish Rana and Andre Russell continued good work in the middle order. Russell has the ability to lead on the front foot and continues to prove a solid mid-order contribution. However, the opening batting partnership has not performed strongly. We could see a change in the top order with Aaron Finch replacing Ajinkya Rahane, to play alongside Venkatesh Iyer. If you are considering IPL betting, our choice for top batman would be Russell. He currently sits joint fourth in the tournament for most sixes (12) and we are hopeful he can smash out a few against the Sunrisers.

Now, it’s time for a brief look at the bowling side. Umesh Yadav, Tim Southee, and Sunil Narine have all made significant bowling contributions in their three winning matches. In the last match, Narine was the most economical bowler in his four overs, conceding 21 runs while taking two wickets gave him an economy of 5.25.

Toss Prediction

We will get straight to the point with our toss prediction. It’s very unlikely that we will see Iyer or Williamson elect to bat first. We are yet to see a captain choose this in the tournament so far, however we will be sure to make a song and dance about it when (or if!) it does. With an evening start, the impact of the dew on the outfield in the second innings is again likely to be a significant factor influencing the result. As we mentioned before, the Sunrisers are yet to lose the toss. Will they be able to successfully defend their score if the Knight Riders manage to win the toss?

Pitch Conditions

The Brabourne Stadium is home to some high scoring matches in the tournament this season, with an average first innings of 194.2. The average Powerplay and death overs scores are very similar with 53.3 for the former and 53.2 for the latter. The pace bowling average is 32.9 which compared to the spin bowling average at 21.0. The red-soil surface has been reported to be fairly even and coupled with smaller boundaries; we are hopeful for some fantastic batting.