Hyderabad: Enjoying an unbeaten run at home, Sunrisers Hyderabad would be faced with a stiff challenge when they take on former champions and table-toppers Chennai Super Kings in an IPL match here on Wednesday.
Sunrisers have 14 points from 11 matches and a win tomorrow would take them closer to a berth in the IPL semifinals.
The Chennai Super Kings, who have won the title twice before, are at the top of the points table despite a humiliating defeat at the hands of Mumbai Indians in their previous match.
After winning a record-equalling seven matches in a row, CSK endured a miserable outing in Mumbai where Mahendra Singh Dhoni`s men were sent packing for a paltry 80, which was the season`s lowest team total.
It came as a wake-up call for CSK, who would be expected to bounce back immediately given the presence of high-profile and in-form players in their ranks.
In an indication of his team`s readiness to learn from mistakes quickly, Dhoni, in fact, expressed happiness that the defeat came during the round-robin stage.
"I think it was a good wake-up call for us. With a few more games to go, we got it at the right time," Dhoni said.
Chennai`s batting line-up comprising Michael Hussey, Suresh Raina and Dhoni himself is the envy of other IPL teams.
In the bowling department, CSK boast of Albie Morkel, Mohit Sharma, Ravichandran Ashwin, Chris Morris and Dwayne Bravo. All of them have done their bit and would be quite a handful for the Hyderabad batsmen.
However, Hyderabad have also been impressive, especially at home. With their collective effort, they clinched thrilling wins against formidable teams such as Mumbai Indians and Royal Challengers Bangalore.
Sunrisers undoubtedly have the best bowling attack in the form of world`s top bowler Dale Steyn, Ishant Sharma and Amit Mishra, who is one of the highest wicket-takers in IPL-VI. The in-form Karan Sharma has also added to the bowling strength.
Batting had been a major area of concern for the Hyderabad side, but that has also shown marked improvement after injured Shikhar Dhawan and West Indies Captain Darren Sammy joined the team and struck form immediately.
Sri Lanka`s Thisara Perera has been quite useful with both ball and bat and young Hyderabad batsman G H Vihari chipped in with some significant contributions.
Captain Kumar Sangakkara`s poor batting, however, continues to be a massive headache.
The Teams (from):
Sunrisers Hyderabad: Kumar Sangakkara (C ), Cameron White, Akshat Reddy, Amit Mishra, Anand Rajan, Ankit Sharma, Ashish Reddy, Biplab Samantray, Cameron White, Chris Lynn, Dale Steyn, Darren Sammy, D B Ravi Teja, G H Vihari, Ishant Sharma, Karan Sharma, Nathan McCullum, Pathiv Patel, Prasant Padmanabhan, Quinton de Cock, Sachin Rana, Shikhar Dhawan, Sudeep Tyagi, T Sargunam, Thisara Perera and Veer Pratap Singh.
Chennai Super Kings: M S Dhoni (Captain), Akila Dananjaya, Albie Morkel, Srikkanta Anirutha, Ankit Rajpoot, Baba Aparajith, Ben Hilfenhaus, Ben Laughlin, Chris Morris, Dirk Nannes, Dwayne Bravo, Francois du Plessis, Imtiyaz Ahmed, Jason Holder, Michael Hussey, Mohit Sharma, Murali Vijay, Nuwan Kulasekara, R Karthikeyan, R Ashwin, Ravindra Jadeja, Ronit More, Shadab Jakati, S Badrinath, Suresh Raina, Vijay Shankar and Wridhiman Saha.
The title is sounding quite unusual but according to highly placed sources, director Trivikram's another upcoming venture with Powerstar Pawan Kalyan is titled as 'Kobali'. Here goes the story.
After delivering a blockbuster movie like 'Jalsa' some time back, powerful Telugu hero Pawan Kalyan and magical writer-director Trivikram joined hands for another movie. This flick is right now under production and a title is yet to be decided for it. But even before completing their second venture, Trivikram shared with close sources that he will be directing Pawan again for the film 'Kobali'. 'Bali' means offering animals or humans at some place to Gods for the sake of loka kalyanam and 'Kobali' is a rayalseema word depicting the same. Targeting this ritual Pawan will be now producing 'Kobali' on his Pawan Kalyan Creative Works banner. Much details of this project are yet to come.
At the moment, Pawan and Trivikram are busy caning a high octane action sequence at the Railway Station set in Ramoji Film City. Talented action choreographer Peter Heins is handling this sequence and it is heard that this will be the interval bang of the movie. Stay connected for updates.
Allu Arjun's characterization has two variations. At times he appears as a pop singer and the very next minute he will be seen as contract killer. Bunny meets Amala Paul who is trained classical dancer when his troop lands in Spain for a competition and falls head over heals for her. The protagonist decides to leave behind his contract killer job and continue as the singer as Amala likes nothing but music and dance.
At the same time, Catherine Thresa joins the Bunny's troop and tries everything she can to get closer to the hero. Both of them fall in love. The rival gang who are in search of Allu Arjun finds him and takes revenge by killing Catherine. Bunny turns violent here and ends up killing the baddies one after the other. Like any other commercial film, the story comes to an end with the death of the antagonist.
Veteran director/producer Dasari Narayana Rao has been away from holding the megaphone but then he has been busy buying movies and taking distribution rights. He owns a company Siri Media and this is a big player in the distribution network. Now, it is heard that Dasari has gone for another big fish.
We are talking about the film ‘Naayak’. Sources say Dasari has bagged the Naizam rights for the film. While it is not sure how much money has been spent, one thing is clear. The general sentiment in industry is, Dasari has got a golden hand and most of his ventures prove fruitful at the box office.
Lately, Dasari has been minting huge money and it got doubled when he took the entire state rights for ‘Julayi’ and before that, the Naizam rights for ‘Sudigadu’. And now that he is touching ‘Naayak’ it might become a blockbuster. The film has Ram Charan in the lead along with Kajal Agarwal.
Telangana Rashtra Samithi resorted to another attack on Pawan Kalyan's latest movie 'Cameraman Gangatho Rambabu'. With government appointed panel giving way for the movie's screening all over Telangana, TRS has taken a new route it seems.
TRS party members have lodged a case on Rambabu at Banjara Hills police station today. They have alleged that director Puri Jagan and hero Pawan Kalyan are provoking Telangana people with their mindless dialogues and insulting culture of Telangana.
In their complaint, they mentioned that strict action should be taken at Puri and Pawan for misleading T-people with their over creative dialogues.
