Hyderabad: Sunrisers Hyderabad, which has become among the title contenders due to the strong performance of its batsmen, will leave no stone unturned to continue its winning streak in the Indian Premier League (IPL) match against Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) to be held here on Sunday. Sunrisers team has won five consecutive matches and is third in the points table with 12 points from nine matches. So far, it has won six matches while it has faced defeat in three matches. On the other hand, KKR team has been struggling under the captaincy of Ajinkya Rahane, but has won its last two matches.

He is in eighth place in this tournament of ten teams. Sunrisers have Abhishek Sharma and Heinrich Klaasen occupying the second and third positions in the list of batsmen who have scored the most runs in the tournament so far. In Ishan Kishan, Sunrisers have another explosive batsman who can change the course of the match on his own any day and he has proved it this season. Australian opener Travis Head also made a great return to form by scoring 76 runs against Mumbai Indians in Sunrisers’ last match. Thanks to his innings, Sunrisers achieved the huge target of 243 runs with six wickets remaining in 18.4 overs. Nitish Kumar Reddy and Salil Arora have performed brilliantly with the bat when required. Considering the strong batting of Sunrisers, KKR bowlers will have to make extra efforts to control them.

Talking about Sunrisers’ bowling, it has been strengthened by the return of captain Pat Cummins. Apart from them, Prafulla Hinge, Ishaan Malinga, Reddy and Saqib Hussain are also playing their roles well. Sunrisers had won by 65 runs in the last match played between these two teams, hence they will take the field with more confidence. KKR team has faced defeat in five matches so far while one of its matches had to be canceled due to rain. KKR retained Rahane as captain despite a disappointing campaign in 2025 but the batsman has failed to inspire the team so far.

He has done well in patches as a batsman but some of his decisions as captain have been questionable. It remains to be seen whether KKR finally includes Rachin Ravindra in the squad as he has been sitting on the bench for quite some time. Finn Allen and Tim Seifert have also not been able to live up to the expectations, while players like Angkrish Raghuvanshi, Cameron Green and Rovman Powell have not been able to perform as expected so far. KKR has also suffered losses due to weak fast bowling attack and spin bowler Varun Chakraborty not being able to perform. In bowling, his team mainly depends on domestic players like Anukul Roy, Vaibhav Arora and Karthik Tyagi.

The teams are as follows:

Sunrisers Hyderabad: Pat Cummins (captain), Salil Arora (wk), Ishan Kishan (wk), Heinrich Klaasen (wk), Travis Head, Ravichandran Ashwin, Aniket Verma, Abhishek Sharma, Harsh Dubey, Cranes Phuletra, Liam Livingstone, Kamindu Mendis, Nitish Kumar Reddy, Harshal Patel, Shivam Mavi, Shivang Kumar, Amit Kumar, Gerald Coetzee, Prafulla Hinge, Saqib Hussain, Dilshan Madushanka, Ishan Malinga, Omkar Tarnale, Jaydev Unadkat, Zeeshan Ansari.

Kolkata Knight Riders: Ajinkya Rahane (captain), Manish Pandey, Rovman Powell, Angkrish Raghuvanshi, Ramandeep Singh, Rinku Singh, Sunil Narayan, Anukul Roy, Vaibhav Arora, Umran Malik, Varun Chakraborty, Cameron Green, Mathisha Pathirana, Rahul Tripathi, Tim Seifert, Tejasvi Dahiya, Rachin Ravindra, Akash Deep, Blessing Muzarabani, Navdeep Saini, Prashant Solanki, Finn Allen, Daksh Kamra, Kartik Tyagi. Sarthak Ranjan, Saurabh Dubey.

The match will start at 3:30 pm Indian time.