It's All About The Hyderabad Pitch As Curator Promises A Sporting Wicket For IPL 2019 Final

With the IPL final approaching, the question uppermost on the minds of the fans is the quality of the pitch for the much-awaited clash.

The opener this season between defending champions Chennai Super Kings and Royal Challengers Bangalore in Chennai had proved to be a damp squib.

The wicket at the MA Chidambaram Stadium had come in for severe criticism after RCB were shot out for a lowly 70 and CSK posted a seven-wicket win.

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In the 2017 final hosted at RGIC Stadium here, Mumbai Indians made a modest 129 for eight and then restricted Rising Pune Supergiant to 128 for six for a one-run win. So what's in store for the teams and the fans on Sunday evening? Will it be a high-scoring game or another sub-par match?

The wicket here has been good for batting this season. The opening game between Sunrisers Hyderabad and Rajasthan Royals had produced 399 runs and the last home game for SRH against Kings XI Punjab saw 379 runs being scored. In between the lowest run aggregate in a match was 232 in the SRH vs Mumbai Indians game.

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Three 200 plus totals have been posted this season with SRH getting all of those. The highest being 231 for two against RCB. SRH had also got 201 for five against RR and 212 for six against Kings XI Punjab. SRH also had the distinction of posting the lowest score of 96 against Mumbai Indians while chasing 137 for victory.

Curator YL Chandrasekhar Rao, who is also the BCCI's Coopted Curator, is working hard to produce a wicket befitting a final. "I want to succeed once again and we are working on the wicket and also the ground to meet the best of the standards," he told TOI on Friday.

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Chandrasekhar and his men are working under the watchful eyes of Daljit Singh, BCCI's chairman of curators. "It's going to be a good wicket. We already have two wickets ready and the third one is being readied," the 62-year-old Chandrasekhar said.