Gujarat Titans pride themselves on consistency and would be expected to produce a solid show against Sunrisers Hyderabad in the IPL in Ahmedabad on May 15 after a rare "flat" performance.
Another win should be enough for defending champions Gujarat Titans to seal a play-off berth while Sunrisers, who have only four wins from 11 games, are all but out of the reckoning.
Barring Rashid Khan, who starred with both ball and bat against Mumbai Indians, the bowlers had a forgettable outing and no one had answers to the special hitting ability of Suryakumar Yadav.
Gujarat remain the table leaders and tend to quickly learn from their mistakes.
"As a group we weren't there. In bowling also we were very flat. Didn't have clear plans or didn't execute," skipper Hardik Pandya had said after their fourth loss in 12 games.
With the bat, the prolific top-order could not get going and despite a blinder from Rashid Khan at number 8, the Titans fell short. The star spinner was back at his best with the bowl to end up with his best figures of the season.
The skillful Mohammed Shami had a rare off day and he would be expected to conjure up magic with the new ball. Mohit Sharma, who was used in the middle and death overs earlier in the season, bowled with the new ball against Mumbai but the move did not play off.
Sunrisers, on the other hand, will be at the mercy of other teams after losing to Lucknow Super Giants from a winning position. They could not defend 80 runs off the last six overs with Nicholas Pooran playing a game changing innings.
The failure of the top-order and the star bowlers not performing as per expectations has let Sunrisers down this season. Anmolpreet Singh has replaced Mayank Agarwal at the top but is yet to make an impact.
Rahul Tripathi too has not set the stage on fire, having totalled 199 runs in 11 games at an underwhelming strike rate of 129.14. The skipper, Aiden Markram, has not led from the front with 207 runs from 10 games at a strike rate of 129.37.
The handling of pacer Umran Malik, who last played on April 29, has also been questioned.
The positive has been the performance of Abdul Samad, who is finally living up to his potential after years of promise.
Squads:
Sunrisers Hyderabad: Aiden Markram (c), Abdul Samad, Rahul Tripathi, Glenn Phillips, Abhishek Sharma, Marco Jansen, Fazalhaq Farooqi, Kartik Tyagi, Bhuvneshwar Kumar, T. Natarajan, Umran Malik, Harry Brook, Mayank Agarwal, Heinrich Klaasen, Adil Rashid, Mayank Markande, Vivrant Sharma, Samarth Vyas, Sanvir Singh, Upendra Yadav, Mayank Dagar, Nitish Kumar Reddy, Akeal Hosein and Anmolpreet Singh.
Gujarat Titans: Hardik Pandya (c), Shubman Gill, David Miller, Abhinav Manohar, Sai Sudharsan, Wriddhiman Saha, Matthew Wade, Rashid Khan, Rahul Tewatia, Vijay Shankar, Mohammed Shami, Alzarri Joseph, Yash Dayal, Pradeep Sangwan, Darshan Nalkande, Jayant Yadav, R. Sai Kishore, Noor Ahmad, Dasun Shanaka, Odean Smith, KS Bharat, Shivam Mavi, Urvil Patel, Joshua Little and Mohit Sharma.
Match starts 7.30 IST.
