On a excessive after Rinku Singh’s phenomenal knock, Kolkata Knight Riders might be gunning for a hat-trick of victories once they face a resurgent Sunrisers Hyderabad within the Indian Premier League in Kolkata on April 14, 2023.
Having began off their marketing campaign with a reversal towards Punjab Kings at Mohali, KKR discovered two unlikely heroes in two matches to get their marketing campaign up and working.
First, it was Shardul Thakur’s storm with the bat that took a star-studded Royal Challengers Bangalore abruptly because the tempo bowling allrounder’s 29-ball 68 led KKR to their first win of the season, a dominant 81-run victory.
Then the low-profile Rinku has turn into the flavour of the season after pulling off the best heist in T20 historical past by scoring 31 runs within the final over to win a match.
KKR defeated the reigning champions Gujarat Titans by three wickets of their den, the Narendra Modi Stadium in Ahmedabad, courtesy Rinku’s astonishing power-hitting.
The two-time former champions, who have been hit onerous by the absence of their skipper Shreyas Iyer and star allrounder Shakib-Al-Hasan and have been written off by many following a low-key public sale, all of a sudden have turn into the aspect to beat this season.
That the 2 wins have come with none important contribution from their star power-hitter Andre Russell and skipper Nitish Rana, make them an much more harmful aspect.
While Shardul and Rinku have undoubtedly supplied the ending choices, KKR think-tank can be eager to show that these two wins weren’t a fluke.
By his commonplace, Russell, the fearsome Jamaican power-hitter, has seemed a shadow of his previous, barring a 19-ball 35 of their rain-hit loss to Punjab Kings of their season opener.
With scores of 0 and 1 within the subsequent two matches, Russell can be eager to show his credentials as he sweated it out throughout apply forward of the match on Friday.
KKR have tried out totally different opening mixtures within the three matches up to now and it’s more likely to be modified once more towards SRH, with England opener Jason Roy more likely to be included in place of Rahmanullah Gurbaz.
The Afghanistan participant has impressed with a combating fifty towards RCB, however with Roy being included as a alternative for Shakib, the Englishman is more likely to be included, whereas Narayan Jagadeesan might don the wicketkeeping gloves.
As for SRH, the Aiden Markram-led aspect appears to be like robust on paper after some large buys like Harry Brook, Mayank Agarwal and Heinrich Klaasen on the public sale.
Overflowing with white-ball specialists, SRH, nonetheless, have did not impress of their first two matches. However, a Rahul Tripathi particular — 48-ball unbeaten 74 — led them to their first win of the season once they defeated Punjab Kings by eight wickets.
Boosted by the win, the Brian Lara-coached aspect would look to carry on to their successful momentum and provides KKR a powerful struggle at residence.
Tripathi might be up towards his former crew, enjoying the function of holding the innings collectively within the center overs. Tripathi is somebody who can rotate the strike within the center overs and land a counter-attacking punch along with his capacity to sort out spin.
SRH can be hoping for the likes of Brook and Klaasen to fireplace and put up a giant whole.
The high-profile Brook, who has been signed for Rs 13.25 crore, has up to now managed scores of 13, 3 and 13.
A member of the England aspect that gained the T20 World Cup final 12 months, Brook has seemed out of kinds within the opener’s function, and it could not be a foul concept to convey him down the order.
They even have a potent spin assault in Washington Sundar and Mayank Markande, recent from his 4/15 towards Punjab Kings, whereas the tempo assault, led by Bhuvneshwar Kumar and Marco Jansen, will give KKR a troublesome struggle.
A win for KKR, presently positioned third, might take them to the highest of the desk.
Squads:
Kolkata Knight Riders: Nitish Rana (c), Rahmanullah Gurbaz, 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 and Jason Roy.
Sunrisers Hyderabad: Aiden Markram (c), Abdul Samad, Rahul Tripathi, Glenn Phillips, Abhishek Sharma, Marco Jansen, Washington Sundar, Fazalhaq Farooqi, Kartik Tyagi, Bhuvneshwar Kumar, T. Natarajan, Umran Malik, Harry Brook, Mayank Agarwal, Heinrich Klaasen, Adil Rashid, Mayank Markande, Vivrant Sharma, Samarth Vyas, Sanvir Singh, Upendra Yadav, Mayank Dagar, Nitish Kumar Reddy, Akeal Hosein and Anmolpreet Singh.
Match begins: 7.30pm IST.
