Fire, fuel and scars.
On Friday (April 15), Kolkata Knight Riders return to the scene where they were completely outplayed by an all-round Delhi Capitals side last Sunday and will be fuelled by the scars to bounce back against the Sunrisers Hyderabad.
Still placed second in the points table, with three wins to go along with two losses, the Knight Riders hold the edge significantly against SRH having won 14 matches out of the 21 the two teams have contested.
Placed eighth in the points table, Sunrisers Hyderabad overcame a rocky start to their season, losing their opening two games, to win back-to-back matches against Chennai Super Kings and Gujarat Titans. Although Friday’s fixture will be their first at the Brabourne Stadium.
Key Players:
Glenn Phillips is out of quarantine and is available for SRH while Aaron Finch is back from national duty has joined the Knight Riders.
Skipper Shreyas Iyer registered his first half-century in the Purple and Gold against the Capitals, albeit in a losing cause, but stepped up when the situation demanded it. He would be key, alongside Venkatesh Iyer and Nitish Rana, to provide middle-overs impetus.
The bowlers will regroup after they were hit around the park on Sunday and will be keen to prove that their performance against the Capitals was an aberration. The spin bowling duo of Sunil Narine and Varun Chakaravarthy has a combined economy of 6.07 in the middle overs.
SRH’s bowling looks settled with the fast-bowling quartet of Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Marco Jansen, T. Natarajan and Umran Malik all excelling across various phases of an innings. SRH, though, will be without their first-choice spin-bowling all-rounder Washington Sundar after he split his webbing in their last game against the Titans.
On the batting front, the top four looks settled with Abhishek Sharma standing out, although, SRH are yet to bat first in the tournament after having chased in all their four games so far.
Squad:
KKR: Shreyas Iyer (c), Ajinkya Rahane, Rinku Singh, Aaron Finch, Abhijeet Tomar, Ramesh Kumar, Pratham Singh, Sam Billings, Sheldon Jackson, Baba Indrajith, Pat Cummins, Mohammad Nabi, Nitish Rana, Shivam Mavi, Anukul Roy, Chamika Karunaratne, Aman Khan, Andre Russell, Venkatesh Iyer, Umesh Yadav, Rasikh Salam, Tim Southee, Ashok Sharma, Sunil Narine, Varun Chakravarthy
SRH: Kane Williamson (c), Abdul Samad, Umran Malik, Washington Sundar, Nicholas Pooran, T Natarajan, Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Priyam Garg, Rahul Tripathi, Abhishek Sharma, Kartik Tyagi, Shreyas Gopal, J Suchith, Aiden Markram, Marco Jansen, Romario Shepherd, R Samarth, Shashank Singh, Saurabh Dubey, Vishnu Vinod, Glenn Phillips, Fazalhaq Farooqi.
