Kolkata Knight Riders will lock their horns against the runner up of previous edition of IPL Sunrisers Hyderabad at Eden Gardens on Sunday. Despite Kolkata Knight Riders playing at their home Sunrisers Hyderabad knocked them out of IPL last season at this same venue and they will be keen on to take their revenge for that loss, but Knight Riders enjoys a slight advantage over Sunrisers in overall head-to-head records.
However, the return of David Warner back in Sunrisers squad will add more firepower in top of the top-order, while on the other hand Knight Riders dealt with huge blow before the start of the season their sensational fast bowler Kamlesh Nagarkoti, Anrich Nortje and Shivam Mavi ruled out of IPL due to their respective injuries.
Kane Williamson, who joined the Sunrisers Hyderabad camp and will be the captaining this season as well, but he is likely to miss his first match against Knight Riders owing to shoulder injury so, in his absence deputy vice-captain Bhuvneshwar Kumar likely to lead his side.
Finally looking at the ground records, spinners will have some added advantage here, but in 70 IPL matches at this venue 1st and 2nd average innings score is around 156 and 143 respectively.
Predicted XI
Kolkata Knight Riders: Sunil Narine, Chris Lynn, Robin Uthappa, Shubman Gill, Nitish Rana, Dinesh Karthik (C & WK), Andre Russell, Piyush Chawla, Kuldeep Yadav, Prasidh Krishna, Lockie Ferguson
Sunrisers Hyderabad: David Warner
Kolkata Knight Riders will lock their horns against the runner up of previous edition of IPL Sunrisers Hyderabad at Eden Gardens on Sunday. Despite Kolkata Knight Riders playing at their home Sunrisers Hyderabad knocked them out of IPL last season at this same venue and they will be keen on to take their revenge for that loss, but Knight Riders enjoys a slight advantage over Sunrisers in overall head-to-head records.
However, the return of David Warner back in Sunrisers squad will add more firepower in top of the top-order, while on the other hand Knight Riders dealt with huge blow before the start of the season their sensational fast bowler Kamlesh Nagarkoti, Anrich Nortje and Shivam Mavi ruled out of IPL due to their respective injuries.
Kane Williamson, who joined the Sunrisers Hyderabad camp and will be the captaining this season as well, but he is likely to miss his first match against Knight Riders owing to shoulder injury so, in his absence deputy vice-captain Bhuvneshwar Kumar likely to lead his side.
Finally looking at the ground records, spinners will have some added advantage here, but in 70 IPL matches at this venue 1st and 2nd average innings score is around 156 and 143 respectively.
Predicted XI
Kolkata Knight Riders: Sunil Narine, Chris Lynn, Robin Uthappa, Shubman Gill, Nitish Rana, Dinesh Karthik (C & WK), Andre Russell, Piyush Chawla, Kuldeep Yadav, Prasidh Krishna, Lockie Ferguson
Sunrisers Hyderabad: David Warner, Jonny Bairstow (WK), Manish Pandey, Vijay Shankar, Shakib Al Hasan, Deepak Hooda, Yusuf Pathan, Rashid Khan, Bhuvneshwar Kumar (C), Siddarth Kaul, Khaleel Ahmed
Player Recommendations:
Wicket-keeper: Dinesh Karthik (9.5 credits)
Karthik had a excellent previous season for Knight Riders where he was the leading run-scorer for this side with 498 runs in 16 games and on few occasions he pulled a victory for his team single handily. Meanwhile, Karthik has a good record against the Sunrisers where he played 10 matches, scored 304 runs at an average of 50.66 with hefty strike-rate of 155.89. He will be the key player at the middle-order for Riders.
Batsman: Chris Lynn (9.5 credits)
Lynn, who likes to play attacking shorts from very first ball and he is known for that his presence in the crease will make the bowlers to struggle to pick correct line and length against him, that much of impact he has produced. Lynn, has played 10 matches against Sunrisers, scored 310 runs at an average of 34.44 at the strike-rate of 125.50.
All-Rounder: Sunil Narine (10 credits)
Ever since he started opening the innings for Knight Riders his batting has been improved a lot. He widely used as a attacking batsman for power-play. Narine, was the third leading run-scorer in previous season with 357 runs in 16 matches and also picked 17 wickets more than other in his team.
Bowler: Rashid Khan (9.5 credits)
Khan's, journey has not been short of a fairy tale in IPL, who was the second leading wicket-taker in previous edition of IPL with 21 wickets in 17 matches and still the most batsmen are struggling to read his deliveries which is why he is the dangerous bowler. Khan, has picked 12 wickets in 10 IP matches against Knight Riders in overall at an average of 6.42 and with bat he can fire some quick runs.
Captain: Chris Lynn
Vice-Captain: Sunil Narine
