Two-time champions Kolkata Knight Riders will seek home comfort of their bid to return to successful methods once they face a depleted Lucknow Super Giants in an Indian Premier League match in Kolkata on April 14.
The match shall be KKR’s first of the 5 matches at home on the trot and the Gautam Gambhir-mentored facet shall be totally conscious this will show decisive to clinch the play-off spot for the primary time since 2021.
In the factors tally, nothing separates the 2 groups, each of whom have secured three wins every, and misplaced their respective last-round matches. KKR’s over-reliance on their Caribbean ageing duo of Sunil Narine and Andre Russell was uncovered by defending champions Chennai Super Kings once they misplaced by seven wickets of their earlier outing.
Narine (27) and Russell (10) failed with the bat and the workforce, who had posted two 200-plus scores from three matches on the again of the Caribbean duo’s blazing kind, may handle an below par 137/9 at Chennai.
That sums up KKR’s batting that has relied on some odd fireworks and missed an anchor within the absence of Nitish Rana (finger damage), who’s slated to take a seat out of one other match.
In the highlight because the starting of the season, KKR captain Shreyas Iyer has did not impress and his scores give an abysmal image — 0, 39 not out, 18 and 34.
Their one other designated batter Venkatesh Iyer has three single digit scores this season to go along with one odd fifty against Royal Challengers Bengaluru and the workforce, it appears, would not have a transparent position for him.
From batting at No. 3 of their IPL opener against Sunrisers Hyderabad, Iyer was seen within the finisher’s position at No. 7 and No. 5 of their final two matches.
Ramandeep Singh additionally had a lean run after a formidable 35 against SRH.
The 2022 U-19 World Cup successful Angkrish Raghuvanshi has impressed essentially the most following his 54 against Delhi Capitals. And he’ll prefer to return amongst runs after failing to transform his begin against CSK.
The most-talked about signing Mitchell Starc’s poor kind with the ball has been the speak of the city.
The Aussie velocity gun has an financial system of 11.00 and took his first wicket of this IPL against DC after freely giving 100 runs within the first two matches.
Having come as Impact Subs, left-arm orthodox spinner Anukul Roy has been spectacular and he want to forge formidable partnership with Narine.
While KKR shall be overwhelming favourites at Eden, LSG with their unassuming strategy is not going to hand over simply, whilst they may miss their tempo sensation Mayank Yadav for a second successive match.
Recovering from a facet pressure that dominated him out of their match against Gujarat Titans, Mayank is doing “good” however skipper KL Rahul has stated that he could take “a couple of more games before coming back”.
Mayank’s substitute Arshad Khan did not impress, conceding at 10.73 runs over as they did not defend 167 at home against DC final night.
Mohsin Khan, who claimed 2/34 against Punjab Kings, might be an ideal substitute but it surely stays to be seen if he is totally recovered from his hamstring damage that had sidelined the left-arm pacer. The workforce owned by Kolkata-based industrialist Sanjeev Goenka will hope for a significantly better present after mustering a median 167/7 against DC on Friday.
The likes of Quinton De Kock and Rahul will look to return amongst runs, whereas additionally they boast of a strong line-up down the order with the likes of Marcus Stoinis and Nicholas Pooran.
That additionally they have a formidable sluggish bowling lineup in Ravi Bishnoi and Krunal Pandya will pose some robust questions for KKR batters.
Teams (from):
Kolkata Knight Riders: Shreyas Iyer (c), KS Bharat, Rahmanullah Gurbaz, Rinku Singh, Angkrish Raghuvanshi, Sherfane Rutherford, Manish Pandey, Andre Russell, Nitish Rana, Venkatesh Iyer, Anukul Roy, Ramandeep Singh, Varun Chakravarthy, Sunil Narine, Vaibhav Arora, Chetan Sakariya, Harshit Rana, Suyash Sharma, Mitchell Starc, Dushmantha Chameera, Sakib Hussain and Mujeeb Ur Rahman.
Lucknow Super Giants: KL Rahul (c), Quinton de Kock, Nicholas Pooran, Ayush Badoni, Kyle Mayers, Marcus Stoinis, Deepak Hooda, Devdutt Padikkal, Ravi Bishnoi, Naveen-ul-Haq, Krunal Pandya, Yudhvir Singh, Prerak Mankad, Yash Thakur, Amit Mishra, Shamar Joseph, Mayank Yadav, Mohsin Khan, Okay. Gowtham, Arshin Kulkarni, M. Siddharth, Ashton Turner, Matt Henry and Mohd Arshad Khan.
Match Starts: 3.30 pm.
