The tenth edition of Indian Premier League is now behind us. The top eight ODI ranked nations will battle it out over the next couple of weeks in England (June 1 – 18) at the eighth edition of the ICC Champions Trophy 2017.
Ahead of this big event, here is the form guide of six Knights (all these players appeared for Kolkata Knight Riders) from VIVO IPL 2017.
Umesh Yadav (India): Playing at home, Team India’s pace spearhead, Umesh Yadav, had a great Test season (30 wickets in 12 Tests). He continued that form into IPL as well, taking 17 wickets in 14 matches at a strike rate of 17.1. In the first warm-up game against New Zealand on Sunday (28 May, 2017), Umesh bowled 4 overs for 11 runs, picking 1 wicket. In the second warm-up game against Bangladesh (30 May, 2017), the speedster finished with figures of 3/16 in 5 overs.
Chris Woakes (England): The English Knight came into the IPL, having showcased his all-round skills against West Indies during England’s 3-0 ODI series win in March. Man-of-the-Series Woakes picked 7 wickets at an economy rate of 3.56 and then scored 81 crucial runs, including a match-winning unbeaten 68 in the second game. The 28-year-old had a memorable IPL 2017, picking 17 wickets in 13 games to end up as KKR’s highest wicket taker. Woakes extended this great run into the ODI series against South Africa, finishing with 4/38 at Headingley in the only game that he was a part of in the three match series.
Chris Lynn (Australia): The Queensalander had a terrific IPL 2017 season. Despite limited appearances (7 out of 16 games) for KKR due to injury, it was a tournament to remember for Chris Lynn. The destructive batsman scored 295 runs a SR of 180.98 (highest SR for any batsman with minimum of 250 runs in this IPL). Lynn made sure KKR got off to a brisk start in majority of his appearances. He looked unstoppable in some of the innings, i.e. 93* off 41 balls against Gujarat Lions at Rajkot, 50 off 22 balls against Royal Challengers Bangalore at Bangalore and 84 off 52 balls against Kings XI Punjab at Mohali. Although Australia have a stable opening pair in David Warner and Aaron Finch, no one will be surprised if Lynn comes out to bat at the top during this tournament in England.
Shakib Al Hasan (Bangladesh): The number-one ICC ranked all-rounder across all formats, played one game in IPL 2017 and left early for national duty. However, he got some useful match–practice during Bangladesh’s tri-series in Ireland (also featuring New Zealand). Shakib took 3 wickets in this series and made some handy contributions with the bat. But he would look to up his game a notch higher in this premier competition.
Trent Boult and Colin de Grandhomme (New Zealand): Colin de Grandhomme featured in 12 matches this season while Trent Boult appeared in 6 games. de Grandhomme picked up 4 wickets & made 126 runs while Boult took 5 wickets. The Kiwi pair will now hope to make the most of the seaming conditions in England and help their side win this trophy for the second time in history.
Let the games begin!
