After a thrilling win over Sunrisers Hyderabad, DK's Knights will take on Ashwin's Kings XI Punjab in their 2nd match of Vivo IPL 2019. Both teams won their respective opening games and will look to keep the momentum going on when they face-off at Eden Gardens today.
Head to Head
KKR: 15 | KXIP: 8 (Overall)
KKR: 7 | KXIP: 3 (At Eden Gardens)
The home side has a better record against KXIP in IPL. But the last time the two sides played at Eden Gardens, Ashwin's men had the last laugh. Despite posting 191 in 20 overs, KXIP won the match by 9 wickets (DLS method) thanks to Chris Gayle and KL Rahul’s destructive opening stand.
Andre Russell vs Shami and KXIP
Dre Russ is a force to reckon with. He has showcased what he's capable on multiple occasions. Against SRH, it was no different. The Jamaican enjoys a good run with the bat against KXIP with second most amount of runs (174 runs in 5 innings) after RCB. Russell's record against Mohammed Shami will add more concerns to the visitors. In three innings, Dre Russ has scored 55 runs (from 19 balls) at a brilliant strike-rate of 290.
Narine - The answer to Gaylestorm
Chris Gayle once again had a great start in IPL (79 runs in 47 balls). The Jamaican had a similar start at Eden Garden last season (62* from 38 balls). Sunil Narine can be DK's go to man for tackling Gayle. The Trinidadian has managed to scalp his fellow Windies player five times. Gayle also has a low strike rate of 82.6 against the off-spinner.
KKR Team News
An injury to Sunil Narine saw Nitish Rana open the innings for KKR in the last match. The ploy worked well for KKR. DK and Chris Lynn were off-colour against SRH. It was an off day for both the men and they'll look to make amends for it.
Chris Lynn was the highest scorer (74 from 41 balls) for KKR last time we played them at Eden. DK has a SR of 240 against Mujeeb Ur Rahman and an avg. of 70+ against Ashwin in IPL - Plenty of reasons to back two of our most experienced players.
KXIP Team News
The team was in the spotlight during their opening match win against Rajasthan Royals for all sorts of reasons. The mankad dismissal of Jos Buttler turned the tide in their favour against RR.
The team is now over it. They have more than a few match-winners and against a team that heavily relies on their spinners, a slam-bang cricket is well on cards when Chris Gayle & co. take the field.
Teams:
KKR: Dinesh Karthik, Carlos Brathwaite, Sandeep Warrier, Kuldeep Yadav, Shrikant Mundhe, Harry Gurney, Sunil Narine, Piyush Chawla, Nikhil Naik, Lockie Ferguson, Prasidh Krishna, Andre Russell, Shubman Gill, Nitish Rana, Chris Lynn, Rinku Singh, KC Cariappa, Joe Denly, Prithvi Raj Yarra, Robin Uthappa
KXIP: Ravichandran Ashwin, Mayank Agarwal, Arshdeep Singh, Murugan Ashwin, Agnivesh Ayachi, Sam Curran, Chris Gayle, Harpreet Brar, Moises Henriques, Sarfaraz Khan, Mandeep Singh, David Miller, Mohammed Shami, Mujeeb Ur Rahman, Karun Nair, Darshan Nalkande, Nicholas Pooran, Lokesh Rahul, Ankit Rajpoot, Simran Singh, Andrew Tye, Varun Chakravarthy, Hardus Viljoen
Last five meetings
KKR 3-2 KXIP
Venue: Eden Gardens, Kolkata
Date & Time: 27 March 2019, 8 PM
