Sunrisers Hyderabad (Playing XI): Abhishek Sharma, Travis Head, Ishan Kishan, Nitish Kumar Reddy, Heinrich Klaasen(w), Aniket Verma, Pat Cummins(c), Harshal Patel, Jaydev Unadkat, Zeeshan Ansari, Eshan Malinga

Mumbai Indians (Playing XI): Ryan Rickelton(w), Will Jacks, Suryakumar Yadav, Tilak Varma, Hardik Pandya(c), Naman Dhir, Mitchell Santner, Deepak Chahar, Trent Boult, Jasprit Bumrah, Vignesh Puthur

Pat Cummins: One change for us - Shami goes out. It is a cause for optimism, we know this surface and ground really well.

Mumbai Indians have won the toss and have opted to field

Hardik Pandya:

Mumbai Indians have won the toss and have opted to field

Trent Boult: (On beginning his IPL career at this ground) Yup, ten years ago 2015, it has been a familiar ground and it’s been a couple of seasons here so it’s nice to be back in blue. Good fun, it’s a great tournament, we are halfway through the tournament, the boys have found some rhythm since the last few games. Bit of a fortress for Sunrisers here but hopefully we can breach it. Any new team has to work out combinations and it takes time so there are some players who don’t need too many introductions, they are big players in the world, the guys are firing at the right time hopefully we can keep them all firing tonight. (On him not bowling the first over sometimes) Both (him and Deepak Chahar) new ball bowlers, certain strengths of each bowlers and there are certain matchups I suppose as well, would love to get the first over and do my thing but I understand my role, so I don’t care who does it, it’s important to get us off to a good start.

Pitch Report | Danny Morrison and Matthew Hayden: Very hot here in Hyderabad. There is a bias in the dimensions - 63m to the right and 70m to the left. Down the ground is 77m. Third time on this particular pitch, this is where all those high scoring games have come. The pitch is very dry and hard. It is a 200+ wicket, but will depend on who can take the early advantage. Both teams have some skilled operators of swing and seam. Won’t be as high as that first game against Rajasthan, but still a great batting surface.

Mumbai Indians have had a tendency to arrive fashionable late to the IPL party, but when they do arrive, they tend to gatecrash the playoffs. The MI juggernaut is picking up some steam with three wins on the trot. Buoyed by the return of Jasprit Bumrah and reinvigorated by Rohit Sharma finally finding some form in the previous game, this is not a Mumbai Indians side that you want to be coming up against. These two sides produced an absolute run fest at the Uppal Stadium last year, and this shouldn’t be very different. We can expect another belter of a surface and lots of six hitting. Stick around…

18:32 Local Time, 13:02 GMT, 18:32 IST: Appearances tend to deceive. Heading into this season, the question was when and not if Sunrisers Hyderabad team will breach the 300 run mark. Those ambitions were heightened further after SRH scored 286 runs in their opening game, and then a few games later chased down a target in excess of 240. Those however proved to be the only two wins for Pat Cummins’ side, who have had a harsh reality check so far in IPL 2025. Their no holds barred heavy metal cricket has had to be tempered with some classical realism, and the resulting medleys haven’t necessarily produced many soothing moments for their fans. However, their destiny could still be in their hands with half the season to go, and maybe today marks the revival for Sunrisers Hyderabad.

Preview

In the lead-up to the 2019 ODI World Cup in England and Wales, the fan scorecards were quietly redesigned to accommodate team totals up to 500. It was a reaction to England's dizzying new approach of fearless hitting on pancake-flat, tailor-made pitches that threatened to upend batting conventions. But as it turned out, the revision was an overcorrection. Across 48 matches in the tournament, no total crossed even 400. And only four went past 350.

Nearly six years later, we tuned into this IPL season with a similar sense of anticipation. The stars seemed aligned: the subtleties of the Impact Player rule had taken hold, a generation of Indian batters had been unshackled, and the science of pitch preparation had quietly evolved into an art form. Hype, too, had its moment. At a Sunrisers Hyderabad fan event before the tournament, Pat Cummins smiled, held up three fingers and said the magic number: t-h-r-e-e h-u-n-d-r-e-d.

Cummins might have been playing to the crowd that day, but the 300 dream didn't seem misplaced when SRH opened their season with 286 for 6, the second-highest total in IPL history. It was a batting performance that sent the hype train into overdrive. Dale Steyn, picking up on the early season mood, playfully predicted that 300 runs could be scored when SRH faced Mumbai Indians on April 17 at the Wankhede. And to be fair, it hardly felt far-fetched; the venue seemed built for it.

But when the day arrived, it was a different story altogether. Wankhede, almost impishly, dished out its slowest pitch on the square, a surface so sluggish it felt like a betrayal. SRH, seemingly happy to be sent in first, spent their innings looking less like the blazing force of opening night and more like travelers stranded on alien land.

The Wankhede match was, in many ways, a reflection of the season itself, which like the 2019 ODI World Cup promised a revolution in run-making but has so far unfolded in stops and starts, with power and intent from batters checked this time by reverse swing and searing yorkers.

Now comes the rematch. SRH host Mumbai in Hyderabad. A truer surface, perhaps even the notorious Pitch No. 2 at Uppal, could offer the stage that Wankhede denied. And three hundred in an innings? April 23 might be the night the magic number comes alive. But then again, given how this season has unfolded, who's to say.

When: Match 41, IPL 2025, on April 23, 07:30 PM LOCAL

Where: Rajiv Gandhi International Stadium, Hyderabad

What to expect: Everything SRH searched for at Wankhede and at other away venues, and never found. So a flat pitch, true bounce and a sea of orange in the stands. Three out of four games at this venue this season have been won by the chasing side. The weather is set to be hot but no rain is expected.

Head to head: MI 14 - 10 SRH

Team Watch

Sunrisers Hyderabad

Injury/availability: There are no reported injuries in the squad.

Tactics & Matchups: Rohit Sharma dazzled in MI's last game with an unbeaten 76 but before that game he had not batted past the PowerPlay. The Indian captain will be up against two bowlers from the Sunrisers who have a favourable record against him. Pat Cummins and Mohammed Shami have dismissed Rohit five and three times respectively in the IPL.

Probable XII: Abhishek Sharma, Travis Head, Ishan Kishan, Nitish Kumar Reddy, Heinrich Klaasen (wk), Aniket Verma, Abhinav Manohar, Pat Cummins (c), Harshal Patel, Zeeshan Ansari, Mohammed Shami, Eshan Malinga

Mumbai Indians

Injury/availability: Karn Sharma missed the last match against CSK because of stitches on his right thumb and he could be available again for this match.

Tactics & Matchups: It's no secret that SRH's wins lately have been built on their opening partnerships. In fact, the pair of Travis Head and Abhishek Sharma averages over 81 in victories but only 18 in defeats, so it's a partnership MI would want to break early but it might not be so straightforward. Trent Boult has just two PowerPlay wickets so far. The good news, though, is that he enjoys favourable match-ups against two of SRH's top-three. Abhishek strikes at around 100 against Boult (30 off 29 balls, 2 dismissals) whereas Ishan Kishan, who bats one-down, fares even worse (43 runs off 46 balls, 3 dismissals).

Probable XII: Rohit Sharma, Ryan Rickelton (wk), Will Jacks, Suryakumar Yadav, Tilak Varma, Hardik Pandya (c), Naman Dhir, Mitchell Santner, Deepak Chahar, Trent Boult, Jasprit Bumrah, Ashwani Kumar

Did you know

- Abhishek Sharma has seven centuries in T20 cricket, and he's scored six of those since January 2023.

- Since scoring a 47-ball hundred on his SRH debut, Ishan Kishan's form has tapered off and he's made just 32 runs in six innings.

- Sunrisers' spinners have picked up only 7 wickets across 7 games, the worst amongst all the other IPL teams. Punjab, who are the second-worst, have picked up 16 wickets in eight games with their spin-attack.

Squads:

Mumbai Indians Squad: Ryan Rickelton(w), Rohit Sharma, Suryakumar Yadav, Will Jacks, Tilak Varma, Hardik Pandya(c), Naman Dhir, Mitchell Santner, Deepak Chahar, Trent Boult, Jasprit Bumrah, Ashwani Kumar, Corbin Bosch, Raj Bawa, Robin Minz, Satyanarayana Raju, Karn Sharma, Reece Topley, Mujeeb Ur Rahman, Krishnan Shrijith, Arjun Tendulkar, Bevon Jacobs, Vignesh Puthur

Sunrisers Hyderabad Squad: Abhishek Sharma, Travis Head, Ishan Kishan, Nitish Kumar Reddy, Heinrich Klaasen(w), Aniket Verma, Pat Cummins(c), Harshal Patel, Zeeshan Ansari, Mohammed Shami, Eshan Malinga, Rahul Chahar, Abhinav Manohar, Jaydev Unadkat, Sachin Baby, Wiaan Mulder, Kamindu Mendis, Atharva Taide, Simarjeet Singh, Smaran Ravichandran