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Former CSK and MI icon Ambati Rayudu backed Sunrisers Hyderabad to take on Rajasthan Royals to win the IPL 2026 eliminator.
The eliminator is contested between the third-placed team and the fourth-placed team in the points table. In IPL 2026, SRH finished third with 18 points while RR finished fourth with 16 points.
The IPL 2026 Eliminator will be played on May 27 at the Maharaja Yadvendra Singh International Cricket Stadium in Mullanpur (New Chandigarh). The loser of this match will see their IPL campaign end, while the winner will move on to Qualifier 2.
SRH in IPL 2026
Sunrisers Hyderabad will consider themselves a bit unfortunate to finish third in the IPL 2026 points table despite earning 18 points.
The top two teams – Royal Challengers Bangalore and Gujarat Titans – also have 18 points each. But among these three teams, SRH has the worst net run rate and RCB has the best net run rate.
For the first 7 matches of their season, they did not have the luxury of fielding regular captain Pat Cummins. So, he turned to Ishan Kishan and asked him to take the lead.
Of their first four matches, SRH lost three, but bounced back and won five consecutive matches. Out of these five matches, Kishan captained in three and Cummins captained in two. The team was in trouble after two losses in its next three matches, but Cummins led the team to victory in the last two matches.
The batting core of Abhishek Sharma, Ishan Kishan and Heinrich Klaasen have done their job smoothly, while inexperienced fast bowlers like Saqib Hussain and Ishan Malinga have come forward to assist Cummins with the ball. Nitish Kumar Reddy has been among the best all-rounders this season.
“The new Chandigarh will be more suitable for SRH” – Ambati Rayudu
Speaking on ESPN Cricinfo, Rayudu was asked his opinion on which team was the favorite in New Chandigarh on May 27. Rayudu predicted that SRH would win the match and advance to Qualifier 2 at the same stadium on May 29.
He said that the ground is more suited to Sunrisers’ fast bowlers than RR and the boundary dimensions will also be a big help for the 2016 champions.
Rayudu said, “I think Sunrisers is a very strong team. I don’t think it will be an easy game for RR. They really need to play to their potential to beat Sunrisers. Especially in New Chandigarh, where the limitations of the team are really big. And it will suit the Sunrisers bowlers and their style of bowling better than RR have at the moment.”
SRH vs RR in IPL 2026
Heading into the eliminator, history is technically on Sunrisers’ side. In whatever matches both the teams have played against each other, Sunrisers Hyderabad has performed better than RR.
In the first match, on 13 April at Hyderabad, Ishan Kishan came to bat on the second ball of the match and scored 91 runs off just 44 balls. His innings played an important role in SRH scoring 216 runs.
Debutant fast bowler Prafulla Hinge completely derailed RR thrice in the first over. Vaibhav Suryavanshi was out for a duck on the very first ball, while Dhruv Jurel and Luan-Dre Pretorius were out on the next ball.
Hinge struck once again in the powerplay as RR faltered at 9/5. Ravindra Jadeja and Donovan Ferreira made a record partnership of 118 runs, but the other debutant Saqib Hussain left his side undone by taking four wickets.
On April 25 in Jaipur, Suryavanshi took his individual revenge, but RR did not take their revenge as a team. Vaibhav Suryavanshi scored 100 runs in 36 balls with four sixes in the very first over of the match.
Dhruv Jurel also scored 50 runs in 30 balls, but none of the other RR batsmen could get going. SRH’s chase of 228 runs was done very easily. Abhishek Sharma scored 57 runs in just 29 balls, while Kishan scored 74 runs in 31 balls and the pair scored 132 runs in just 9 overs. From there, the task became much easier as Reddy and Klaasen took SRH home with one and a half overs to spare.
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