IPL 2017: Sunrisers Hyderabad vs Gujarat Lions, 5 factors of winning

#3 Strategy

Brendon McCullum will be a major threat to the Sunrisers bowlers

Sunrisers know that they need to target Lions' top four of Roy, McCullum, Raina and Karthik. They might go for a gamble and open the attack with Rashid Khan against McCullum. The Kiwi has never been comfortable against leg-spinners and the young Afghan bowler has bowled with the new ball before.

They need to contain Raina and Karthik though and Ben Cutting might be the key here. The Australian hits the deck hard and could generate disconcerting bounce which is a weakness for Raina. Karthik also tends to play in the air against short balls and this might be the way to dismiss them both.

For Gujarat, containing Warner, Yuvraj and Henriques will be the utmost priority. In the absence of Jadeja, they need a spinner who can bamboozle the Hyderabad batting. The hosts do not have batsmen extremely comfortable against spin and this is where their weakness lies. Unfortunately, Lions have only Kaushik, a mystery spinner, at their disposal. But if they use him wisely and bring in Faulkner to do the Bravo-job, Sunrisers could have a hard time.