IPL Boundary Blackjack - Round 1, Match 6 - SRH v KKR

We've reached match 6 of IPL 2026 meaning that every team has played a game and supporters have had the chance to assess their side's chances of glory this year.

As with any IPL season, it's clear that the margins between victory and defeat are going to be slim!

Sunrisers did well in their opening match to recover from 29 for 3 after 4 overs to post a score of 201. New captain Ishan Kishan played a great knock and young Aniket Verma hinted that he's ready to build on last season's solid start with some incredible hitting.

His 100m six at the Chinnaswammy was one of the shots of the tournament to date, effortlessly creaming Romario Shepherd into the 3rd tier.

https://www.iplt20.com/video/64082/100m-monster--no-look-six-audacious-from-aniket?tagNames=2026

On one hand, SRH will be concerned about the form of their top order. Abhishek Sharma had a poor World Cup saved to a certain extent by the half-century he got in the final having started the tournament with 3 straight ducks.

Travis Head too doesn't come into the IPL on the back of a load of T20 runs with Australia being dumped out of the WC early. He had a stellar Ashes and went back to play red-ball cricket for South Australia last month. Even though he's aggressive at all times, he might need a game or 2 just to recalibrate for the short-format.

On the other hand, if you can get 200 on the board without those 2 contributing then imagine what's possible when they come off!

Head has 459 runs at the Rajiv Gandi Stadium at S/R of 181 while Abhishek has 521 runs at an incredible Strike rate of 204! This is their back garden and cheered on by the Orange Army might this might be just the opportunity to launch their seasons.

KKR must have thought that they were in with more than a decent chance of victory after posting 220 batting first at the Wankhede but again, it was chased down with relative ease.

Finn Allen got them off to a flyer and everyone else batted around him. The only critique you could have is that no batsmen was able to make that really big score and KKR's innings lost a bit of momentum towards the backend.

Of course, this time they won't be up against Jasprit Bumrah and in fact, you could argue that on current form, these 2 franchises have 2 of the weaker pace attacks in the tournament suggesting that their will be opporunities for batsmen to get in and go big.

KKR's trump card is usually their spinners but Sunil Narine bowled just 3 overs at the Wankhede and the last of those was the penulitmate over when the game was already gone.

You could put that down to conditions or match-ups but generally you'd want your best bowler to try and impact the game! KKR were of course without captain Rahane when they took to the field, the veteran suffering from cramp after his exploits with the bat. Rinku Singh as stand in looked short on ideas of how to break the 148 run opening stand that ultimately cost his side the game.

Unfortunately for KKR their spinners don't have great records in Hyderabad. Narine has combined figures of 2 for 168 in his previous IPL apperances on this ground while Varun has played only 1 IPL match here previously and taken a single wicket.

Spinners have generally not faired well here and based on what we saw in the opening games for these 2, they are going to need their batters to get above average scores on the board if they are to have a chance of winning this game.

The most recent game here was rain effected (14 boundaries), otherwise the Rajiv Gandhi Stadium has seen the 2nd most boundaries in recent seasons

That, plus the recent stats at the Rajiv Gandhi which show what a great batting surface this has been in recent years, suggestting that we should be in for a high scoring game.

With this being the penultimate game of IPL Boundary Blackjack round 1 then a few players probably need to guess big and hope for it to be a run fest!

Anyone brave enough to go for a 70+ score again?

Position	Player	Points	Hits	Busts
1	@bitandi	151	4	0
2	@gwajnberg	118	4	0
3	@valentin86	117	3	1
4	@niallon11	117	3	1
5	@tortangkahoy	113	4	0
6	@bozz.sports	108	3	1
7	@hatdogsensei	107	4	0
8	@tsnaks	105	3	1
9	@onemanonewrite	104	4	0
10	@imfarhad	103	2	2
11	@fullcoverbetting	102	3	1
12	@blockchainfpl	100	2	2
13	@blanchy	98	4	0
14	@r1c4rd0	98	2	2
15	@wildlifelover	96	2	2
16	@tengolotodo	96	2	2
17	@ynwa.andree	90	2	2
18	@talesfrmthecrypt	84	2	2
19	@doombot75	82	2	2
20	@shitsignals	52	1	3
21	@kennybot	50	1	3
22	@uwelang	41	2	2
23	@workingdad	30	1	0
24	@sportsgeek	20	2	2
25	@dewabrata	0	0	0
26	@fnzcmd	0	0	0

After 4 matches, @bitandi has a commanding lead at the top but 1 wrong move and that will change. After that it's a real scramble for the top 3 with just 20 points separating 13 players!