The 2024 season of the Indian Premier League (IPL) has arrived in its final destination in Chennai, where one-time title holders — Sunrisers Hyderabad (2016) and Rajasthan Royals (2008) — are gearing up for one final push in Friday’s second qualifier that will decide the second finalist of the season.

Unlike the placid batting turfs of Kotla, Wankhede or the Rajiv Gandhi Stadium in Hyderabad, a sterner challenge awaits the batters in Chepauk where the strip will be sticky in nature. And thus, the MA Chidambaram Stadium could be expected to provide the perfect balance between the bat and ball.

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The impact of the sticky Chepauk wicket could fall on the Sunrisers Hyderabad batting line-up’s all-or-nothing ultra aggressive approach, and thus the management would be expected to prepare a contingency plan.

Travis Head (533 runs at 199.62) and Abhishek Sharma (470 at 207.04) have been arguably IPL 2024’s best power-hitting pairs, collectively smoking 72 sixes and 96 boundaries, but the duo could face a stiff challenge in Rajasthan Royals’ vastly experienced spin twins of Ravichandran Ashwin and Yuzvendra Chahal.

Not to forget, Sunrisers have another explosive middle order batter in Heinrich Klaasen (413 runs at 180), who also has 34 maximums to his credit. But it again boils down to the nature of wickets, and at Chepauk, the ball stops and stroke-makers find it difficult when it comes to hitting through the line.

The Ashwin factor is also critical from SRH’s point of view because he has played all his cricket at Chepauk and is fully used to the strip’s behaviour. The 37-year-old will also take a lot of heart from his impressive 2 for 19 in the Eliminator against RCB and hope to do an encore in the must-win second qualifier.

With Chahal, the country’s best leg-spinner for company, the Royals are sorted with their bowling combination and would be hoping that the spin twins limit the threats from Head, Abhishek and Klaasen quickly and help the side gain control of the proceedings.

As far as the SRH’s bowling is concerned, left-arm seamer and local lad T Natarajan and skipper Pat Cummins will be expected to shoulder the responsibility while Bhuvneshwar Kumar will look to get back among the wickets after failing to grab one in his last two outings. SRH’s spin unit, comprising leg-spinner Mayank Markande and left-arm orthodox Shahbaz Ahmed, hasn’t been much effective with the latter primarily being used as a hitter lower down the order.

On the other hand, the Royals rode on an all-round show to snap their five-match winless streak in the crucial Eliminator against the Royal Challengers Bengaluru on Wednesday. While Ashwin and the bowlers were effective in restricting RCB to 172 for 8, the batters put up a collective show to chase down the score with an over to spare.

In the absence of their star opener Jos Buttler, the Royals top-order, composing Yashasvi Jaiswal and Tom Kohler-Cadmore set the tone, for the likes of Riyan Parag, Shimron Hetmyer and Romvan Powell to orchestrate the chase effectively.

However, skipper Sanju Samson will have to do better, given that he hasn’t crossed the 20-run mark in the last three contests, and a big score could boost his confidence going into the T20 World Cup in the Americas.