The dreams of reaching the Indian Premier League (IPL) 2026 final will end for one team tonight, as Sunrisers Hyderabad (SRH) take on the Rajasthan Royals (RR) in the Eliminator in New Chandigarh. SRH have already beaten RR twice in the tournament, and will be keen to make it three in a row as the two sides clash. However, a major roadblock lies in the way of the Pat Cummins-led side’s hopes of reaching the final: the 15-year-old prodigy, Vaibhav Sooryavanshi.
The Sunrisers have had contrasting results in the two matches they have played against Sooryavanshi this season. In the first match, they managed to keep him quiet, but in the second, he smashed a blistering century. Nevertheless, the Sunrisers came out on top in both fixtures.
Speaking to JioStar ahead of the Eliminator, Cummins admitted that there is a need for a Plan B and Plan C against a batter of Sooryavanshi’s quality.
“It’s always a balance of, as a bowler, understanding what you do well and how you’re going to bowl to your strengths. But when there are probably one or two players in every lineup who can take the game away from the opposition, you do spend a little bit longer working on a Plan B or Plan C. So, yeah, we’ll plan for him. Even though he got a hundred against us last time, I thought there were times when we actually bowled quite well to him and Kept him quiet. At other times, we’ll learn from that.
When asked if Hyderabad’s 100 per cent record against Rajasthan this year would give his team a boost heading into the Eliminator, Cummins emphasized that every game starts from scratch.
“You’re obviously starting from scratch again, but you do take learnings from previous games. We’ve played them twice. We’ve had a good look at a lot of their players. A lot of our guys can look back at those games where they’ve had success and lean on that heading into the finals. So, it’s always nice coming up against a team that you’ve had some success against,” he said.
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