Gujarat Titans vs Sunrisers Hyderabad - IPL 2022 Match 40: Who Will Win?

Gujarat Titans Team Preview

The Gujarat Titans are having a fantastic IPL 2022 season. With only a single loss in seven games, they have truly made an explosive start into the tournament. Entering the established tournament as a new franchise will of course draw the attention and scrutiny, however the Titans are demonstrating what a formidable team they are to play.

Their most recent match was against the Kolkata Knight Riders in Match 35, in which the Titans won by eight runs. Although the opening partnership between Shubman Gill and Wriddhiman Saha was short lived, the early wicket that dismissed Gill didn’t affect the Titans too much. Hardik Pandya and Saha (25 runs off 25 balls) continued to bat aggressively and take the Titans to 47/1 after 6 overs. Pandya scored 67 runs from 49 balls, for a strike rate of 136.73. This was the third half century of the tournament for him, putting him in joint first place with David Warner and Liam Livingstone in the 2022 IPL statistics so far. While he is still just under 200 runs short of Jos Buttler’s beastly score of 491 runs in the tournament to date, his total of 295 is enough for third place. David Miller scored 27 runs from 20 balls and Rahul Tewatia scored 17 runs from 12 balls. Rashid Khan and Lockie Ferguson were both dismissed for ducks, while Rahul Khan was caught out after two balls and failed to score any runs.

It was a successful showing from the Titan bowlers. Mohammed Shami Yash Dayal, and Khan all took two wickets each. Shami was the most economical bowler after conceding just 20 runs in his for overs (5.00), while Khan conceded 22 runs in four overs for an economy of 5.50. Khan’s performance netted him the Player of the Match award. Alzarri Joseph and Ferguson both took a wicket each, and both scored an economy close to 8.00.

Our match prediction today for top batsman would have to be Miller, while for top bowler, it would be Shami.

Sunrisers Hyderabad Team Preview

The Sunrisers Hyderabad are currently second on the IPL 2022 leaderboard with 10 points. As the Sunrisers have a positive run rate of 0.691, this puts them ahead of the Rajasthan Royals, the Lucknow Super Giants, and the Royal Challengers Bangalore who also have won five games each at the time of writing. Remarkably, the Sunrisers are yet to lose the toss, and have opted to bowl in the first innings. It will be interesting to see how their fair if they are invited (or potentially choose!) to bat first.

Their emphatic win in just eight overs against the Royal Challengers Bangalore saw them over the victory line with 9 wickets and 72 balls left. The Sunrisers bowlers dominated, failing to let the Challengers get any sort of footing into the game. Marco Jansen (Player of the Match) and T. Natarajan both took three wickets, while Jadadeesha Suchith took two, and Bhuvneshwar Kumar and Umran Malik both took one. If the most expensive bowler was Jansen at 6.25, then you can see what a fantastic job they did. Malik was the most economical bowler (3.25) only conceding 13 runs in his four over bowling spell.

The Sunrisers only needed three batters to seal the win: Abhishek Sharma, Kane Williamson, and Rahul Tripathi. Sharma scored 47 runs from 28 balls before his dismissal at 64/1. Williamson scored 16 runs from 17 balls not out, while Tripathi took the Sunrisers over the finishing line with 7 runs from 3 balls. If you are considering IPL betting, Malik and Natarajan could be good choices for top batsman.

Toss Prediction

Could our toss prediction go any other way? If the trends of the 2022 IPL season continue, then it’s unlikely. We haven’t seen many captains elect to bat first (in fact, just the Titans in Match 35!), in an effort to minimise the time the squad is bowling while there is dew on the ground. We are nearly through 60% the matches and are managing to see more and more teams able to successfully defend their batting total. While this does show that batting in the first innings isn’t a death sentence, we can see that batting second is still more advantageous in this year’s IPL season. Despite the Titans success after electing to bat first, we stick with our previous IPL prediction and say that the captain to win the toss will choose to bowl first.

Pitch Conditions

We are back again at Wankhede Stadium in Mumbai - the fourth match to be played here in five days. At the time of writing, there have been eight matches played at this location, with an impressive 50/50 split between winning teams both chasing and defending. Interestingly, the first four matches (1, 4, 8, and 13) were all won by the chasing team, whereas the latter half (20, 27, 34, and 37) have all been won by the defending teams.

We saw the highest score, and the only two teams to pass the 200+ mar in Match 34, between the Delhi Capitals and the Rajasthan Royals (222/207). Match 1 saw the lowest scores of 131/133 between the Chennai Super Kings and the Kolkata Knight Riders. The average first innings score is currently 167.3. So, if a defending team can hit the 160-170 range, this should give them enough leeway. The Gujarat Titans reached a total of 158 when playing at this pitch last in Match 4 against the Lucknow Super Giants. The Sunrisers Hyderabad have remarkably yet to play a match here this season. Therefore, it could be possible that the Sunrisers have a slight disadvantage being new to this wicket.

The forecast is bright and warm, with a ‘real-feel’ temperature around 43C. The humidity is high at 65%, which could result in dew forming as the evening match progresses.