A resurgent Gujarat Titans, boasting a power-packed bowling unit, will come in the way of Kolkata Knight Riders’ revival hopes when the 2 groups cross swords in the IPL in Kolkata on April 29.
The house aspect’s misfiring marketing campaign lastly got here on observe after they fired in unison to snap their four-match dropping streak with a convincing win at Bangalore.
In a season their Caribbean star duo of Andre Russell and Sunil Narine are but to fireplace, the low-profile KKR aspect with out their common skipper Shreyas Iyer may have discovered a trump card in Jason Roy.
The Englishman set the tempo with a fiery half-century for the likes of Nitish Rana, Rinku Singh and David Wiese to capitalise and set a profitable complete of 201 in opposition to Royal Challengers Bangalore.
Included solely in their sixth match of the season, Roy has scores of 43, 61 and 56 in three matches and KKR’s batting will as soon as once more centre round him.
The win lifted KKR to seventh in the 10-team standings however they nonetheless have a protracted way to go to make the playoffs.
From right here on, KKR (six factors) should win at the least 5 out of their remaining six matches to guarantee themselves a playoff berth.
Of the six matches, KKR play two away matches, together with one in Chennai, and skipper Rana and coach Chandrakant Pandit could have their job cutout in opposition to the Pandya-led defending champions.
Pandya has put out an ideal T20 template and his capability to seal shut matches has caught everybody’s eyes, particularly after they choked Lucknow Super Giants whereas defending a paltry 135 for six.
Pandya has been a revelation as a captain since January 2022, profitable 23 out of 31 matches with a victory share of 76.67.
GT (10 factors from seven matches) have been a well-oiled unit and appears set for a successive playoff berth, sitting behind leaders Rajasthan Royals on internet run-rate with a match in hand.
The Titans boast of a tempting bowling line-up in India pacer Mohammad Shami who together with Pandya have prompted sufficient flutter in the powerplay.
Shami has made it look really easy with the refined motion of his fingers across the seam on the supply and he’ll relish the problem when he returns to his ‘house floor’.
Pandya too has been cranking up pace, one thing he confirmed whereas dismissing his Mumbai Indians counterpart Rohit Sharma with a 144kph supply.
But the likes of Rana and in-form Rinku will face the most important problem when they’re up in opposition to the GT spinners, led by the wily Rashid Khan, who has discovered a brand new ally in his countrymate Noor Ahmed.
Following the footsteps of Rashid, the 20-year-old left-arm spinner has been relentless particularly in the center overs.
It was on full show once they choked MI to 152 for 9 in their chase of 208 with Noor returning with figures of three for 37 that included the prized scalp of Suryakumar Yadav.
With in-form Shubman Gill (three fifties) on the high and the powerhitting trio of David Miller, Abhinav Manohar and Rahul Tewatia in the bottom-half, GT additionally has a fearless batting unit.
It stays to be seen how the KKR spin pressure address the problem of bowling to the Titans, who may even have ‘house boy’ Wriddhiman Saha seeking to hearth on the high with Gill.
Varun Chakravarthy and rookie legspinner Suyash Sharma, who shaped a profitable mixture in opposition to RCB, have been sharing the spin workload with veteran Narine going wicketless in 5 matches.
Pace bowling division too doesn’t encourage a lot confidence as KKR are nonetheless trying to find an ideal mixture with solely Umesh Yadav being the common in all their eight matches.
They have handed debuts to Vaibhav Arora, Kulwant Khejroliya and David Wiese, whereas the likes of Tim Southee, Lockie Ferguson and Shardul Thakur have all performed musical chair.
But none of them, together with the veteran Indian pacer Yadav, has impressed.
India allrounder Thakur, nonetheless, has a matchwinning knock to his identify and KKR would possibly recall him for the tie.
Squads
Kolkata Knight Riders: Nitish Rana (c), Jason Roy, Venkatesh Iyer, Andre Russell, Sunil Narine, Shardul Thakur, Lockie Ferguson, Umesh Yadav, Tim Southee, Harshit Rana, Varun Chakravarthy, Anukul Roy, Rinku Singh, N. Jagadeesan, Vaibhav Arora, Suyash Sharma, David Wiese, Kulwant Khejroliya, Litton Das, Mandeep Singh, Rahmanullah Gurbaz and Aarya Desai.
Gujarat Titans: Hardik Pandya (c), Shubman Gill, David Miller, Abhinav Manohar, Sai Sudharsan, Wriddhiman Saha, Matthew Wade, Rashid Khan, Rahul Tewatia, Vijay Shankar, Mohammed Shami, Alzarri Joseph, Yash Dayal, Pradeep Sangwan, Darshan Nalkande, Jayant Yadav, R. Sai Kishore, Noor Ahmad, Dasun Shanaka, Odean Smith, KS Bharat, Shivam Mavi, Urvil Patel, Joshua Little and Mohit Sharma.
Match begins: 3.30pm.
