Veteran commentator Aakash Chopra has claimed that the SunRisers Hyderabad (SRH) will reach to the IPL 2024 final if Travis Head doesn’t score. However, SRH will face the Rajasthan Royals (RR) in Qualifier 2 in Chennai on Friday, May 24 as well. However, Head has scored 533 runs at a strike rate of 199.62 in 13 innings this season. But, he was dismissed for ducks against left-arm seamers in his last two innings as well.
In a video shared on his YouTube channel, Chopra said, “Their strength is their two openers. If these two openers start firing, no one is able to stop them. They turn the match in their favor in the first eight to 10 overs. Travis Head has gone down a little, gotten out two successive times, but you expect him to play well. So the first player is Travis Head. Travis Head’s numbers batting first are very good. Trent Boult hasn’t troubled him that much, although he could have got out last time. Riyan Parag dropped a catch. So they might try to trap Travis Head in the same way once again. However, he scored a fifty against this team last time. This team cannot progress without Travis Head scoring runs.”
“My second player is Abhishek Sharma because he is batting very well. If Travis Head is scoring runs in the first innings, Abhishek Sharma is scoring runs in the second innings. If he keeps batting like this, you never know, he might play for India soon. Times are changing, the Indian selectors have already started focusing on the next generation,” he further added.
However, Aakash Chopra also picked Abhishek Sharma as the second SRH player to watch out for. Abhishek is the second-highest run-getter in IPL 2024 for SRH. He has smashed 470 runs at a strike rate of 207.04 in 14 innings. Aakash Chopra also added that the SunRisers Hyderabad are virtually unstoppable if their batters get on a roll as well.
“The thing that goes in favor of this team is that, because of the type of cricket they have played, if they get on a roll, it’s very difficult to bring them down. Rahul Tripathi is batting well now. Nitish Reddy plays very well against spin, scored 70-odd runs against this team last time, and hit massive sixes. After that, they have Heinrich Klaasen. So Travis Head and Abhishek Sharma, the two openers, then Heinrich Klaasen and two Indians in the middle. This is both a strength and a weakness because only Abdul Samad and Shahbaz Ahmed are left after that. So they are seen slightly stumbling there,” Aakash Chopra concluded.
