After a rain-curtailed win against Sunrisers Hyderabad in the Eliminator, our Knights face the Mumbai Indians in Qualifier 2 of IPL 2017 tonight. Knight Riders, here are the numbers to keep an eye on!
GG, the leader: Scoring 486 runs so far, Gautam Gambhir has led from the front in IPL 2017. This is the 8th time when Gambhir has scored more than 300 runs in an IPL season. Not only this, GG now holds the record for most runs by an IPL captain (3023 runs in 107 innings for KKR) for a single franchise.
Bhai’s 150th IPL match: Scoring 1893 runs in 106 matches, Yusuf Pathan has been a magnificent contributor for us in IPL. The 2nd Qualifier will be his 150th match in this tournament.
Kuldeep approaches fifty: Kuldeep Yadav has impressed one and all in this IPL season. The young Chinaman has taken 12 wickets and is just 1 away from completing 50 wickets in T20 cricket.
Narine close to a ‘high-five’: Sunil Narine has had a different IPL season where he has made more headlines with the bat, rather than the ball. With 10 wickets so far at an economy of 7.10, the mystery spinner has been able to keep the opposition batsmen in check. He now needs only 5 wickets to reach the milestone of 100 IPL wickets for KKR.
Narine also has a great record against MI captain, Rohit Sharma having dismissed him six times in T20 cricket. The off-spinner has dismissed Kieron Pollard thrice in T20 cricket.
Setting the ‘pace’: Unlike the past years, KKR pacers have stolen the limelight this season. Out of the 87 wickets taken by the Knights, 60 have been taken by pacers while spinners account for the rest. Our pacers have the best average (23.8) throughout all teams in IPL 2017, which talks a lot about their work.
The lucky charm: Piyush Chawla has played in 5 IPL games in 2017 and guess what, KKR won all those games. Chawla also has a great record against the Mumnbai Indias, taking 18 wickets in 16 IPL matches, the highest tally for any KKR bowler against the Men-in-Blue.
PC also enjoys bowling to Ambati Rayudu. In 7 innings, he has dismissed the MI batsman thrice.
With everything to play for, the Knights will give it their all in this do-or-die battle. Rest assured, the fact that KKR beat MI at Cuttack in 2014 will bring back happy memories for Gautam Gambhir and Co. For that was the only other occasion when these two sides met at a neutral venue on Indian soil.
#DusKiDahaad #AmiKKR #3For3
